Parents whose children were permanently disabled in crashes involving unauthorized immigrant drivers gave impassioned testimony Tuesday on the human cost of deportation-proof “sanctuary” policies at a House Judiciary hearing.
Such Democrat-controlled cities and states denied 17,000 immigration detainers last year, Republican lawmakers said, refusing to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement remove criminal migrants from the country.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat and ranking member on the Judiciary, said ICE struggles to pick up detainees even when a cooperating jurisdiction, such as Virginia’s Loudoun County, does want to assist the agency.
But when Mr. Raskin said he acknowledged the anguish Marcus Coleman was living through after his daughter’s traumatic collision in 2024, the father batted down the gesture.
“I reject your guys’ sympathy. To be honest with you, there’s no way you guys are sorry,” Mr. Coleman told Democratic lawmakers at the House Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.
“Not one of you guys have ever called me. Not one of you guys have ever reached out to me. Not one of you guys have ever sat there and seen me in the hallways and said, ’Hey, sorry about your daughter,’” he continued.
“You guys do it right here while you guys are grandstanding on top of your soapbox. This is when you guys care,” he said.
Dalilah Coleman was five years old when an Indian man plowed his 18-wheeler into California traffic. She lost her ability to walk, talk and eat normally due to injuries from the crash.
California officials gave motorist Partap Singh a commercial driver’s license despite his having illegally entered the country in 2022. He was taken into ICE custody in August 2025.
Mr. Coleman has advocated for the federal passage of Dalilah’s law, which would limit CDLs to legal residents and English speakers.
Democrats tried to steer the conversation away from their sanctuary policies to the Trump’s administration’s enforcement mission.
Mr. Raskin prompted the Cato Institute’s top immigration scholar, David Bier, to talk about the jump in criminal migrant releases under the Trump-run ICE.
ICE data show that the agency has released 25,712 people with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, and more than 2,000 with violent criminal records since January 2025.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bier said noncriminal migrant arrests are up 14-fold under the Trump administration.
“It’s because they care more about the total number of people entering detention than they do about the quality of deportations,” Mr. Bier said about the White House’s approach.
Republicans brought it back to the perils of sanctuary laws from the perspective of police.
Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama questioned Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler about how Maryland’s statewide law prohibiting working with ICE has affected public safety in his community.
“It puts dangerous people back on the street,” the sheriff said. “Even if it’s minor crimes, our citizens deserve to be protected from crime by law enforcement.”
Patricia Fox of Colorado testified how not all police officers are interested in confronting the issues of illegal immigration.
Ms. Fox said detectives initially told her the Venezuelan woman who rammed the motorcycle her daughter was riding was a U.S. citizen.
Valeria De Los Angeles Bermudez Marcano entered the country illegally in 2023. She was deported in April.
She said she didn’t find out the driver was illegally in the U.S. until six months after the March 2025 collision, and that the woman was allowed to drive without a license or insurance.
The crash launched Carissa Aspnes headfirst into a concrete barrier. The 22-year-old woman was wearing a helmet and protective gear, but still suffered a major brain injury. She is now nonverbal and uses a wheelchair.
“While every catastrophic collision is devastating, there is another layer of pain in knowing that this one was preventable,” Ms. Fox said. “If an American citizen had hit my daughter, I wouldn’t be here asking why somebody who had no lawful right to be in this country hit her in the first place.”
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