Rep. Jayapal Stands Next to Mahmoud Khalil as She Introduces Detainee Rights Bill

Rep. Jayapal Stands Next to Mahmoud Khalil as She Introduces Detainee Rights Bill

The term “useful idiot” can apply to any number of Democrats, but it perhaps best fits Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) as she ramps up her efforts to enshrine special “rights” for illegal immigrant detainees to the extent that they are not even detained at all.

Standing alongside pro-Hamas agitator and leftist icon Mahmoud Khalil, Jayapal announced her “Dignity for Detained Immigrants” Act (DDIA) on Wednesday, sharing some of the details about what the bill would do if passed and signed into law:

“Our Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act has a remarkable, unprecedented 123 original co-sponsors — before we’ve even introduced it,” Jayapal said during a press conference. “One hundred and twenty-three co-sponsors, and it overhauls the detention system. It drastically scales back the use of detention, it ensures that every single immigrant who is in detention has their human and civil rights protected.”

On her Congressional website, Jayapal alleged without evidence that detainees were being held in “inhumane” facilities with unsanitary conditions, and a lack of food and basic care:

Detained people in these facilities are being held in inhumane living conditions, with reports of overcrowding forcing 35 men to share one toilet and sleep head to toe on concrete floors, of people being served only a cup of rice a day or rotting food, and of people having their medications withheld or being denied necessary medical care. Further, the Trump Administration has restarted the practice of detaining families and children, which has long been criticized as unsafe and inflicting irreversible harm on children.

This is while the Trump Administration has blocked Congressional oversight, despite death reports that do not line up with autopsy reports. In the case of Chaofeng Ge, ICE stated that he died by suicide, while his attorney alleges he was found with his hands and feet tied.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal announces new bill to eliminate the ability of DHS to detain illegal immigrants and require them to be given taxpayer funded lawyers.

The Left cares more about illegals than they do their own citizens.pic.twitter.com/G4faGVgKFo

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) December 3, 2025

Among other things, here’s what the DDIA would do:

• Repeal mandatory detention;
• Prohibit the detention of families and children in family detention;
• Create a presumption of release and impose a higher burden of proof to detain primary caregivers and vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, survivors of torture or gender-based violence, people with serious mental or physical illness or disability, LGBTQ individuals, asylum seekers, and people over age 60;
• Phase out the use of private detention facilities and jails over a three-year period;
• Require DHS to establish civil detention standards that provide, at minimum, the level of protection in the American Bar Association’s Civil Immigration Detention Standards;
• Mandate the DHS Inspector General to conduct unannounced inspections with meaningful penalties for failure to comply with standards; and
• Require DHS to admit Members of Congress to detention facilities for unannounced inspections.

This bill has been introduced during previous Congresses. Though the text of the latest version has not been uploaded to the Congress.gov website as of this writing, the one Jayapal introduced in 2023 during the 118th Congress called for DHS to coordinate and provide “access” to any number of resources, including social services, housing, and legal representation, and demanded that such resources include “services in the appropriate language”:

The Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish, outside of the purview of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a community-based case management program that—

“(A) provides alternatives to detaining aliens;

“(B) offers a continuum of community-based support options and services, including—

“(i) case management; and

“(ii) access to—

“(I) social services;

“(II) medical and mental health services;

“(III) housing;

“(IV) transportation; and

“(V) legal services; and

“(C) provides services in the appropriate language.

As for Khalil, here’s what he had to say:

Mahmoud Khalil: “No one should be detained for immigration enforcement.”

Get this guy out of my country. pic.twitter.com/vyldSb5B1T

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 3, 2025

Though the bill won’t go anywhere, it does reaffirm what the Democrats’ true priorities are: standing with criminal illegal immigrants over the American people.

– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –

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