U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO) is dodging reporters’ questions about, among other actions, Trump’s pardons of J6 rioters, but Evans isn’t shy about expressing his support for the president’s move to deport immigrants.
And evidence to the contrary, Evans seems to have no worries that law-abiding immigrants are getting swept up in Trump’s deportation efforts.
In a Jan. 23 interview on KOA radio, host Marty Lenz asked Evans if he was concerned that arrests of immigrants could have “collateral damage [that could] potentially hurt some people in your community that get caught up in this?”
“You know, I think that’s why we have the justice system that we have in the United States,” responded Evans. “You know, we used to say, ‘As cops, you know, whatever we do stands for a night. But in the morning, when the lawyers and the judges all come back to work and review everything that we do, we’re the bottom of the totem pole.’ And anything that I do as a police officer can be overruled by the judges. The lawyers can petition that whatever I did be overruled.
“And so everything that law enforcement does is subject to very, very strict scrutiny from a wide variety of different perspectives to include perspectives that are oftentimes outside of the, you know, the official government. You have defense attorneys and others that are going to be looking very, very closely at these cases. And so I think that just speaks to the type of justice system that we have or should have in the United States, where, again, you have that scrutiny of everything that goes on under the aegis of law enforcement.”
Advocates say Evans’ view that the courts will protect law-abiding migrants is naive.
Nicole Cervera Loy, policy and campaigns manager for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), expressed concern over Evans’ statement, pointing out that immigrants face “systemic barriers to fair legal representation.”
“CIRC is concerned about Representative Evans’ assertion that law enforcement actions are subject to significant strict scrutiny,” said Loy in an email to the Colorado Times Recorder. “While in theory, our justice system is designed to provide oversight, in practice, Black and brown communities — especially immigrants — experience disproportionate policing, harsher sentencing, and systemic barriers to fair legal representation compared to their white counterparts.
“The idea that legal review alone ensures justice ignores the well-documented racial disparities that persist at every stage of the criminal justice process. We urge Representative Evans to acknowledge these realities and advocate for policies that actively address racial and immigration-based injustices.”
Immigrants who haven’t committed crimes are being swept up in Trump’s current deportation push.
On Sunday, immigration officials arrested about 1,200 people, nearly half of whom had no criminal records, according to figures obtained by NBC News.
No criminals were on board two planes carrying people deported from the U.S. who arrived in Colombia on Tuesday, according to Colombian officials cited in a Washington Post report. The deportees included over 20 children.
