- The Laken Riley Act would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants charged with crimes.
- The bill is gaining momentum with some Senate Democrats.
- It is cosponsored by the entire Senate Republican Conference, including Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. John Curtis.
The House passed the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student killed by a migrant in the country illegally, that would require the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take a migrant in the U.S. illegally into custody if charged with theft or other crimes. All four Utah GOP Representatives backed the bill.
The bill passed by a vote of 264 to 159. It is the first piece of legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House of the 119th Congress.
Forty-eight Democrats voted in favor of the bill while 159 were opposed. Democrats were far more supportive of this bill compared to last year, when only 37 Democrats backed it during a vote in March. NBC News reporter Sahil Kapur noted this change could be attributed to the rightward shift among voters, many of whom were motivated by President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La, said the 159 Democrats who opposed the bill are ignoring “the loud and clear message from the voters” in the recent election, but House Republicans “heard the voices of those who wanted change,” especially related to illegal immigration.
Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, in a post on X, criticized the Biden White House for allowing migrants to “victimize and terrorize innocent Americans with zero accountability.”
“With President Trump and Tom Homan’s zero-tolerance law-and-order approach back in the White House, we will ensure that families never have to pay the devastating price of open borders lawlessness again.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who opposed the bill, acknowledged the terrible tragedy of Riley’s murder in a post on X. But, he said, “Attempting to honor her memory by passing a bill that requires mandatory detention without criminal charges–and without access to a bond or bail hearing–is a blatant assault on American values.”
Will the Senate pass the Laken Riley Act?
Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the Senate, and they will need help from other side of the aisle to pass this bill and get it to Trump’s desk.
The Laken Riley Act is gaining some momentum among Senate Democrats. Newly sworn-in Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., in a statement stated that not only will he vote yes, he will cosponsor it. Why? “Arizonans know better than most the real consequences of today’s border crisis,” Gallego said. “We must give law enforcement the means to take action to prevent tragedies like what occurred to Laken Riley.”
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, also from Arizona, joined Gallego in backing the bill, as did Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.
Fetterman, one of the most vocal proponents of the bill from the left, said “multiple things can be true at the same time.” He promised to continue protecting Dreamers, a term for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.
“But I can’t imagine why anyone would find it controversial that we have hundreds of thousands of people here illegally with criminal records, and they all need to be deported. And I’m not sure why that would be controversial or why somebody would want to defend that,” Fetterman said, according to The Washington Examiner.
Aside from a handful of Democrats, the entire Senate Republican Conference — including Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis — have cosponsored the Laken Riley Act in the Senate.
“The sooner we make good on this vital promise to the American people, the better. We cannot allow any more violent crimes by illegal felons,” Lee said in a post on X Tuesday.
Border security is a key priority for Republicans, who plan to leverage the GOP trifecta — in the House, Senate and White House — and lay the groundwork ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.