Response of Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas)

1. “As we saw on August 3rd, Texas is not immune from the increasing rate of hate crimes committed since Trump’s election in 2016. The El Paso shooting was motivated specifically by anti-Latino and anti-immigrant sentiments harbored by the perpetrator of the shooting. There is simply no place for this kind of hate in Texas or anywhere else in America.” 2. “Congress has the responsibility of passing policies that will keep Americans safe. Earlier this year, I joined the majority of my colleagues in the House of Representatives to condemn white nationalism and white supremacy. Just last week, I joined 65 of my House Democratic colleagues in demanding answers about the Trump administration’s attempts to weaken the federal response to white supremacist extremism. Congress has a responsibility to continue finding concrete ways to ensure that we can push back against these hateful ideologies." Why do you believe people convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime or who receive an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias should not be able to own firearms, as HR 2708 calls for? “Like I said before, Congress has a responsibility to legislate and pass policies that will keep Americans safe. This includes keeping guns away from people who have demonstrated they are motivated by white supremacist extremism and are more prone to commit atrocious acts of violence in the name of these hateful ideologies. This is why I am a cosponsor of HR 2708, Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019.” Link to Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia’s questioning during Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes and white supremacy: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4791306/rep-sylvia-garcia-texas-describes-hate-crimes-deep-effect