This morning, I sat down with Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., to discuss the Justice for Angel Families Act, a bill he’s pushing alongside Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas.
The legislation would extend support to “Angel Families”—immediate relatives of those killed by undocumented immigrants or international drug cartel members. By amending the 1984 Victims of Crime Act, the bill opens the Crime Victims Fund to these families, covering medical bills, mental health counseling, lost wages from emotional distress, and funeral expenses.
It’s a direct response to a system that currently leaves these families without federal compensation.
The bill also locks in the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office, created under President [Donald] Trump but shuttered by President [Joe] Biden. Reopened in April by [DHS Secretary Kristi] Noem, VOICE offers Angel Families resources like immigration enforcement updates, offender-custody status, and social service connections.
Codifying VOICE ensures no future administration can close it or allow it to expire, like the Biden administration did with grief counseling services during his term.
Marshall stressed the bill’s mission to deliver justice and healing to families shattered by such losses, underscoring its role in filling a critical gap for those often overlooked. Following is the transcript from our interview:
TONY KINNETT: Welcome back to “The Tony Kinnett Cast,” here on The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated first on 93 WIBC. Great, of course to be joined by Doctor and Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas. … Thanks, sir.
SEN. ROGER MARSHALL: Hey, Tony, it’s great to be with you today. I think we’ve got some great topics to discuss.
KINNETT: Well, let’s hop right into those: The first is a bill that I’m really looking forward to seeing. It’s a codification in a way—it’s an expansion of a Trump policy from his first term that a lot of Americans are really passionate about. So, I’ve, I’ve kind of teed it up for you there. Hit it out of the park.
MARSHALL: Yeah. The issue here is, the loved ones of what we call “Angel Families,” folks that had a loved one that was murdered by an illegal alien, and basically that those loved ones are not eligible for some funding to help pay for funeral expenses, health care, those types of things.
So, essentially, you want to make them eligible for that, and then to codify this program that President Donald Trump set up to help those families as well, to get them the proper counseling and, and the social type of help that they need as well.
KINNETT: And there’s a lot of ways that you could take this. I think one of the key facets of this bill that I find kind of long overdue is that this is, in essence, a national security issue.
The United States government promises its citizens that it will protect and defend them from foreign threats, but then, when a foreign threat causes them severe harm, obviously physically … with medical expenses, with funeral expenses through horrible crimes like we’ve seen with individuals like Laken Riley.
All of a sudden, [when] does it stop becoming a national security issue? That the government should step in and assist Angel Families in this way as though we would, again, in a situation where there was a foreign threat outside the United States. … This makes sense to me.
MARSHALL: Yeah, … it does. And, you know, let’s stop and celebrate the good news here.
When President Donald Trump was elected, the No. 1 most immediate national security threat our country faced was the open southern border, and there was [10,000] or 15,000 people crossing that border every day. And now over the last month, it’s less than 300 a day. There was a couple of days, I think, it was two or three people cross the border illegally as well.
But unfortunately, there are hundreds of thousands of violent, illegal criminal aliens in the country now. … [To] President Donald Trump’s credit, I think he’s already deported 130,000. There’s more work to do. In the meantime, these criminal aliens are committing crimes, violent crimes, and I think a DUI is something I see every day.
I just was reviewing a case recently where an illegal alien killed a family, in a car as well. So, … this law that we have helps out those families. Um, you know, for every Laken Riley, there’s dozens of other people that have been murdered by violent, illegal criminal aliens. A lot of ’em again … is the DUI issue as well.
Those loved ones are often left with … funeral bills, with large hospital bills, as well. And this just helps a little bit of a bridge for that family. And, and to your point, to take responsibility that we didn’t keep our families safe.
KINNETT: I think that that’s the kind of basic action that’s missing from Congress.
Most often we … hear about a lot of great executive orders or programs that came either in the first Trump administration or in this administration, and we say, ‘Great.’ Well, how long are those particular programs or these particular maneuvers going to be around? And the common answer is, well, until the next president comes in, if that’s from a different party and changes a lot of things, or reverses executive orders, or allows certain programs to run out.
Congress needs to codify some of these programs into law. You need to see again, like, … you have in this bill, the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, amended to include new things. You need some codification.
MARSHALL: Exactly. And that’s easier said than … done. … I wish I could say, oh, this is an easy task.
Remember [in] the Senate, it’s going to take 60 votes to get something like this done. Elections do have consequences. We have 53 Republicans. We’ll do it. It’s hard to imagine. Can you, I, can you imagine? I can’t find seven Democrats to vote for this, but we’ll see. We’ll do our best. …
This opportunity where there was counseling available, let alone some money to help with, so, it will go away with a Democrat president as well. But in the meanwhile, we’ll do our best. We’ll try to find enough oxygen here to get passed a reconciliation bill and get some things like this done.
KINNETT: You know, it was really interesting.
After the Laken Riley Act was passed, the media kind of the CNN/MSNBC corporate legacy crew tried to get these town halls together where these representatives on the left side of the aisle who voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act were trotted out to do almost a “1984” Oceania: “I’m very sorry that I did this. I regret my vote for this 80-20 issue.”
Do you think that Democrats are even gonna be allowed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer or [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries to voice support for, again, it’s not some multi-trillion-dollar package; it’s a common sense national security and reconciliation measure?
MARSHALL: Yeah. Tony, you know, the Democrats are in a hole, and they won’t stop digging.
This is another 80-20 issue … to your point here, and they just won’t stop digging. So, and they are very much controlled by their senior management, so to speak. They control the purse strings. They’ll be threatened to be primaried. And they’ll be threatened to have their money taken away from them as well.
And this is where people ask me, where did [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi’s power come from? She was the best ever at just kneecapping people if they ever got out of line with her as well. So, I think it’ll be very hard to get it across the finish line, but nevertheless, I want to get them on record. I want to get the Democrats on record.
One more thing: So, when the people are up for reelection, we can look, we can point to this and say … “They say one thing; they do another.” They say they care about your safety. But here’s one more example of them not caring about the safety of your loved ones.
KINNETT: And that’s one of the things I wanted to pivot this to: … The Democrats are currently trying to reframe their focus, and they’re struggling deeply. They’re so stuck on the “Maryland man,” or they’re, they’re stuck on the LGBTQ+, whatever side of issues. Again, these ‘20’ sides of the 80-20 issues, and they are starting to try to get out and explain themselves because otherwise they can’t get any media attention.
We are starting to actually see Democrats, I think of Chris Murphy, for example, go on record and defend their policy on men in women’s sports. Um, but I’m curious to see whether they will be forced to take a stand on something again, like reconciliation and restitution for Angel Families, because that’s the kind of thing that really burned Democrats.
Not as a political lever, like that was the intention, but it did burn Democrats right before the election in ’24—to stand against common sense measures against illegal immigration.
MARSHALL: Yeah, Tony, if you’re explaining, you’re dying up here and, and Republicans are guilty of this as well, and we need to keep going on the offensive. I think that the emphasis, to me, right now is “Promises made, promises kept.”
If President Donald Trump was in this conversation today, right now, he would say, and he has looked at me more than once, said, “Roger, I campaigned—No. 1—more than anything else, more than the economy, on securing the border and making your family safe.” And we just can’t point out enough to people—it didn’t take legislation.
Now, we need legislation, and I have confidence in President Donald Trump. Maybe in the third or fourth year we could go back and fix a broken immigration system. But in the meantime, part of this big, one, big beautiful bill is $50 billion to finish the wall. And then beyond that there’s another $50 billion for raises for our Border Patrol and bonuses for those as well.
I’m going to go down there in the next couple weeks and salute our troops that are down there. We have about a thousand U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Riley, Kansas, down there helping secure our border as well. So, I just can’t, we can’t emphasize enough promises made, promises kept. We did what we said we’re going to do.
Now it’s Congress’ job to do our job. President Donald Trump has secured the border for now, but we need to give him the money to finish building the wall and give him and Secretary Noem the people that they need to secure that border long term, as well.
KINNETT: Let me ask you about that really quickly, just because the Senate is such a key part.
It’s the key part of the confirmation process, hundreds of nominees trotted before the Senate to be confirmed to federal positions. What’s your opinion of how Kristi Noem is doing so far as the secretary of Homeland Security?
MARSHALL: Well, you know, Kristi’s obviously a great communicator, and I think that’s one thing that I’m really, I think that she does better, better than most people, is to show America this is exactly what we’re doing.
She’s tough as nails. I’m telling you, she’s one of the toughest people I’ve ever met in my lifetime. She’s doing a great job, and I think she’s got good people surrounding her, and I’m looking forward to [going] down there and shake some of these men’s and women’s hands, and say, “Thank you for helping keep our family safe.”
KINNETT: Last question here before I let you go, because I am also one of the crew that likes to see Congress at work when they’re on the clock and, you know, not talking to guys like me all day.
The last question that I have for you: Do you think that there are going to be further measures in the next couple of years that start reducing kind of the long-term reliance on executive orders instead of just seeing an executive order passed and then hope it gets codified?
How do you see maybe the Senate or the House start to bring power and a little bit of energy back to Congress, if at all?
MARSHALL: Yeah. So I, I would start for, you know, our “promises made, promises kept.”
We just finished up, I believe our 14th Congressional Review Act. And again, this is something that has to be done within about six months of the previous president writing rules. And it only takes 50 votes in the Senate, and we rescinded 14 major, major orders, regulatory orders of Joe Biden, rolling back regulations, helping set American energy free, help setting American business free as well.
So, that’s one thing that we have done. Rescission packages are another opportunity for rescission. What the [Department of Government Efficiency] work has done here, to turn that into law, it takes a rescission package. The White House has to initiate it. It only takes 50 votes as well. And, and then beyond that, let’s see. Right now, the Democrats are still in their death-and-dying stages of grief.
You know, they’re still angry’ total denial as well. But hopefully, going forward, they’ll come out of some of that denial, and we’ll find seven or 10 moderate Democrats to walk across the line and help us out as well. So, I think it is a tough job. The Democrats do an amazing job of sticking together.
They’re lemmings now, and … people criticize Republicans, that we’re not, that we don’t always just fall in line, but that’s what people love about us, is that we are free spirits as well, and we’re gonna stick to our values.
KINNETT: Yeah, there is that ideological diversity in the Republican Party. But I don’t know, I think the way things are going there, there might be a more independent member or two in, in the Senate, the way that some of the Democrats from Pennsylvania, for example, are being treated by their own party. So, Sen. Marshall, thank you so much for taking a minute to join us.
Thanks also for introducing this bill. I hope that it gets the support that it needs for, again, Angel Families, who have suffered at the hands of illegal immigrants.
MARSHALL: Tony, thanks so much for having me. Everyone, be safe. Let’s make America great again.
