Republican Senators Kevin Cramer and Bill Hagerty announced their intentions to introduce a bill called “Arrest Murderers Not Ministers Act.” The bill will require the Department of Justice to redirect Fiscal Year 2023 law enforcement resources from politically driven prosecutions of nonviolent pro-life advocates under the “Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances Act” to instead prosecute offenders who have committed violent crimes, drug trafficking crimes, including those involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, or illegal immigration-related crimes.
The DOJ has devoted substantial law enforcement resources to abusing the FACE Act despite increasing violent crime and record-breaking deadly drug overdoses and illegal immigration.
“This abuse and waste of federal law enforcement resources to gin up criminal charges regarding matters customarily and properly handled by local law enforcement in order to advance a political agenda is particular egregious in light of the current wave of violent crime, drug-overdose deaths and illegal immigration, which deserve maximum DOJ resources,” said a release from Sen. Cramer.
“Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice continues to abuse its power by targeting peaceful, pro-life advocates,” said Senator Cramer. “The so-called ‘reproductive rights task force’ distorts existing law to push their left-wing, radical views while violent crime rages across the nation. The Arrest Murderers Not Ministers Act directs the DOJ to use their resources to charge people who have committed violent crimes and actually broken the law.”
“Instead of stopping soaring violent crime, deadly drug trafficking, and illegal immigration, the Biden DOJ is focused on stretching federal law to arrest political opponents,” said Senator Hagerty. “This desperate, eleventh-hour attempt by the Biden Administration to score political points and distract from its two years of failures is not only an abuse of law enforcement power, but is endangering American communities by siphoning limited resources away from actual law enforcement. This legislation will ensure that law enforcement resources are used to address the real crises Americans are facing—not the manufactured crises of the Biden Administration.”
The Arrest Murderers Not Ministers Act requires DOJ to use FY23 law enforcement resources that would have been spent prosecuting nonviolent persons under the FACE Act to instead prosecute offenders who:
- Have committed violent crimes;
- Are felons who illegally possess firearms;
- Have committed drug trafficking crimes, including crimes involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids; or
- Are illegal aliens who have committed crimes in the United States.
Prosecutions under the FACE Act for violence or property damage are still permitted.
Joining Senators Cramer and Hagerty are Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
Click here for bill text.
