OAN Staff James Meyers
4:09 PM – Monday, April 28, 2025
This past weekend, more Democrats swiftly criticized and spoke out against President Donald Trump’s signing of the Laken Riley Act.
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Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), a representative for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional district, touted his decision to vote against the Laken Riley Act. He also further criticized the Trump administration during the April event.
Vasquez argued that deporting illegal aliens like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, among others, is “testing and stretching the fabric of our democracy to a place we have never seen before.”
During the speech, Vasquez stated that it took “courage” for one to vote against the Laken Riley Act, noting that he “did. I voted against [the bill],” leading the audience to cheer. “Because due process is a fundamental part of who we are as Americans,” he continued.
He then went on to criticize the Trump administration for deporting non-citizens in general, including Abrego Garcia, asserting that U.S. citizens aren’t safe from being deported from the country if the Trump administration has “their way.”
Recently, mainstream media outlets have skewed the details behind a story surrounding a two-year-old child whose mother is an illegal alien from Honduras. In the surfacing reports, legacy media outlets painted the situation as an American child who was wrongly deported under the Trump administration. However, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin explained that the non-citizen Honduran mother had requested to take her children with her as she was in the works of being sent back to Honduras. Nonetheless, Judge Terry Doughty told the press that there was “strong suspicion” that the child, who is identified only as “VML,” was deported “with no meaningful process.”
Soon after Vasquez’s speech, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokesman Zach Bannon responded to his remarks.
“Time and time again, out-of-touch Democrat Gabe Vasquez chooses to prioritize criminal illegal aliens over the well-being of hardworking New Mexicans,” Bannon told Fox News Digital. “He’s completely abandoned common sense, pandering to the radical left while betraying the very people who will vote him out of office next year.”
Weeks after the passing of the Laken Riley Act, Representative Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) similarly expressed harsh words over it — even though she voted in favor of the bill at the time. During a CNN town hall, Hayes suggested that she wished she could go back in time and vote against the bill.
“As I’ve thought about it over the last couple of months, I probably would have voted differently. It’s a vote that I regret,” she said.
“I trusted that (the Trump) administration wanted to have border security, they wanted to work with Democrats, that we could actually move forward,” she said. “I am not really sure of that because I have seen the rhetoric that has come out and the attacks that have been targeted toward immigrants, so I am very cautious and careful when I am negotiating my votes forward.”
The Laken Riley Act was the first bill that Trump signed into law after taking back the White House.
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