Rep. Jasmine Crockett: The Constitution Isn’t That Complicated… Unless You’re the GOP

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gg1LgFL1_Y

 

May 22, 2025

In a Judiciary Committee markup, Rep. Jasmine Crockett schools her GOP colleagues on the basics of the Constitution. While Republicans push tired, failed policies like mandatory minimums, Crockett brings the receipts — quoting directly from a 2025 Supreme Court ruling (yes, Trump’s court) to remind everyone that the Fifth Amendment guarantees due process, even for immigrants. If they cared about the Constitution half as much as they claim to, Rep. Crockett wouldn’t need to keep breaking it down.

Transcript

0:00

thank you so much Mr chair my amendment

0:02

today would eliminate the mandatory

0:04

minimums established under this bill um

0:07

now I got all these remarks but let me

0:08

just talk to y'all very real we have

0:11

seen and a number of people have

0:14

admitted that they have practiced

0:15

criminal law at some point in time in

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their lives we have tried mandatory

0:20

minimums I don't know how many times and

0:22

every single time we have failed and the

0:24

definition of insanity is doing the same

0:26

thing over and over expecting a

0:27

different result and frankly I don't

0:29

know if y'all believe that there is

0:31

going to be um you know some kind of

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phone call telegraph or what will take

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place off into all of these foreign

0:40

lands that says you know what we have

0:43

increased the mandatory minimums and so

0:46

now you should be deterred that is not

0:48

going to happen this is not successful

0:50

we have tried it over and over and we

0:53

have always failed what we should do is

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focus on why is it that people would

0:57

risk their lives to come to this country

1:00

exactly what could be so bad going on

1:02

where they are from that they would say

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you know what I will risk being

1:07

incarcerated because I need to go and

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get that job doing the jobs that most

1:11

Americans don't want to do whether it is

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working on the farms or whether it's out

1:15

there doing construction or whatever

1:18

jobs it is that they have done to

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contribute to our economy the question

1:22

should be how can we fix immigration and

1:25

I can tell you for sure the mandatory

1:27

minimums have never fixed anything in

1:29

this country and I don't anticipate it's

1:31

going to fix this the final point that

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I'll make before I have to go back to

1:34

something else that we were talking

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about earlier is that we are not

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giving the uh resources to those that

1:43

are incarcerating folk already so now we

1:47

want to leave people incarcerated for

1:49

longer amounts of time we literally just

1:52

had a hearing with the Bureau of Prisons

1:55

and they were talking about the fact

1:56

that they are underresourced and so now

1:59

that they're underresourced why not pile

2:01

on to them and give them extra work i

2:04

mean we somehow or y'all somehow found a

2:07

way to make sure that ICE could get up

2:09

to

2:10

$42,000 worth of a bonus per person yet

2:14

the Bureau of Prisons they get

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absolutely nothing except for what more

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bodies that they need to somehow take

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care of i don't think that that makes

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good sense that is not fiscally

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responsible i know y'all know that term

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so uh I think that we should definitely

2:30

um vote for my amendment because we want

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to be fiscally responsible and this is

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fiscally irresponsible all right now let

2:38

me get to this other point i was going

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to introduce this as a UC and I will do

2:43

that as well because I don't know why we

2:45

still arguing about what the

2:47

Constitution say i I still I'm still

2:49

confused so let me tell you what the

2:51

Supreme Court had to say in the decision

2:54

AARP at all versus Donald J trump

2:58

President of the United States this is

3:00

the opinion that came down May 16th 2025

3:03

regarding the Texas situation it

3:06

specifically says on page three so you

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don't have to read too far in paragraph

3:11

number two it says the fifth amendment

3:15

entitles aliens to due process of law in

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the context of removal

3:22

proceedings and they were quoting Trump

3:25

v.J gg which is also a 2025 case they go

3:30

on to say "Procedural due process rules

3:32

are meant to protect against the

3:35

mistaken or

3:36

unjustified deprivation of life liberty

3:40

or property." That's why we've been

3:42

talking about a brago and then the next

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sentence goes on to say "We have we have

3:47

long held that no person shall be

3:50

removed from the United States without

3:53

opportunity at some time to be heard."

3:57

I'd like to enter the Supreme Court

4:00

decision i don't even like this Supreme

4:01

Court i want to point that out i would

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like to enter this into the record for

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all those that don't understand what the

4:09

Constitution says and it's been

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reaffirmed by this is Trump's Supreme

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Court that's why I don't like it i'm

4:14

just be honest it's been reaffirmed by

4:16

his Supreme Court unanimous consent mr

4:20

chair without objection thank you so

4:22

much i appreciate you and I will yield

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back