Washington's Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Among Seven Democrats To Approve Invasive Body Searches For Immigrant Children

Last week, three congressional representatives from Washington State voted to pass the so-called “Kayla Hamilton Act,” a controversial bill which will subject unaccompanied immigrant children to invasive body searches and prolonged immigration detention if passed by the Senate.

It’s not surprising that Washington State Republicans Reps. Dan Newhouse and Michael Baumgartner voted in favor of the bill, which narrowly passed with the full strength of the Republican caucus behind it. And perhaps it is also not surprising that Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat in a reddish-purple district who has racked up a list of obscene, party-betraying, humanity-denying votes,  was among the seven Democrats in Congress to vote “yes.” 

The bill, introduced by Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.), takes advantage of the murder of Kayla Hamiliton — a 20-year-old Maryland woman who was raped and strangled to death in Maryland in July 2022 by a undocumented 16-year-old with alleged ties to the MS-13 gang — to weaken protections for undocumented children and help advance the Trump administration deporation agenda. 

The bill would allow immigration agents to search the bodies of children as young as 12 years old for “gang affiliation” markings. As the ACLU notes in their breakdown of the bill, nothing in the legislation prevents agents from stripping the children naked to search for such markings. 

The bill would also subject children to “prolonged and unnecessary detention in prison-like conditions,” instead of waiting for their immigration proceedings at home with their parents or sponsors, the ACLU writes. For kids, even short periods of detention while accompanied by a parent can have detrimental effects on their development.

And the bill doesn’t just stick kids in “prison-like” conditions, it authorizes immigration agents to throw them in actual prison if the agency can determine they are a “flight risk,” have a “gang-related tattoo,” or “any pending charge” for alleged gang-related activity in the U.S. or abroad. This will give federal agencies a lot of leeway to imprison children — they throw around the “flight risk” accusation without specific reasons and they don’t have a great record of correctly identifying “gang tattoos,” sending people to torture camps for symbols that honor their families or express their support of a sports team.

Immigrants rights groups, civil liberties advocates, and children’s wealthfare organizations stood up against the bill and the Democrats heeded their warnings — for the most part. Just seven Democrats flipped on their party, joining up with Republicans to weaken protections for immigrant children. Washington’s state’s own Gluesenkamp Perez, a routine ally to Republicans, was among the handful of Democrats voting in favor. 

Gluesenkamp Perez did not respond to The Burner’s request for comment and she has not released a public statement explaining her support. But her motivations seem pretty clear. 

Gluesenkamp Perez represents Washington’s 3rd District, which stretches across the state’s southwest corner, including Clark, Cowlitz Wahkiakum, Pacific, Lewis, and Skamania counties, plus a sliver of Thurston County. In the last two presidential elections, this district's results were 2 percentage points more Republican than the national average, according to the Cook Partisan Voter Index.  

Gluesenkamp Perez has been lucky to look like the reasonable choice up against a literal Nazi in the past, but now that she’s up against a more moderate Republican, she may have trouble making a case for herself in 2026. Right now, it appears she’s attempting to represent her district by siding with Republicans on the Laken Riley Act, the censure of the only Palestinian-American in congress, a resolution condemning the horrors of socialism, and a bill to try 14 year-olds as adults in D.C.. 

Some argue this is how she keeps her seat. But the combination of her crumby record and a more center right opponent may hurt her when it comes to exciting Democrat volunteer and fundraising power. Regardless, if there is any cosmic justice, I don’t think it will consider the tough spot she’s in for re-election when evaluating the morality of voting to violate and imprison children.