Across America, families are facing a surge in violent carjackings. Under the Biden Administration, criminals were emboldened, our communities felt less safe, and sometimes our law enforcement officers lacked the tools they needed to put these offenders behind bars.
Even members of Congress have not been immune to carjacking. Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) were carjacked at gunpoint, and Rep. Cuellar was just blocks from the United States Capitol.
That’s why I’m proud to lead the Federal Carjacking Enforcement Act with Congressmen Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and David Kustoff (R-TN) in support of President Trump’s mission to keep American families safe and end Biden’s dangerous policies
This bipartisan, commonsense fix will strengthen federal law and restore the original intent of Congress in combatting this crime.
Federal prosecutors must meet an unusually high burden of proof to bring a carjacker to justice. Under current law, they must prove that the offender intended to cause death or serious bodily harm.
That is a bar higher than what’s found in most state laws, and one that has made federal prosecutions far too rare, even as carjackings continue to rise nationwide.
This requirement wasn’t the product of careful policymaking, it was a last-minute drafting mistake in the 1994 Crime Bill, and it has handcuffed prosecutors for three decades.
Our legislation finally fixes that mistake. By replacing the outdated “intent to cause death or serious bodily harm” requirement with a straightforward “knowingly” standard, we give prosecutors a practical way to hold violent offenders accountable.
This legislation maintains higher penalties when someone is killed, and the offender acted with malicious intent but removes the unnecessary hurdles that have allowed too many dangerous criminals to slip through the cracks.
This bill aligns federal law with the laws already working in most states and restores the tough-on-crime approach Congress originally meant to enact. And it does so with bipartisan support, because protecting American families should never be a partisan issue.
Law enforcement organizations across the country and twenty-one of my colleagues in the United States House of Representatives, including the National District Attorneys Association and the Major County Sheriffs, have endorsed this effort because they know firsthand how desperately this fix is needed.
America’s families deserve safer streets. Prosecutors deserve the tools to make that happen. And violent criminals deserve to face real justice.
The Federal Carjacking Enforcement Act delivers all three.
