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The US House on Wednesday gave final passage to a bill requiring the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, sending the proposal to Donald Trump’s desk and giving the new president his first legislative victory as he presses his hardline immigration agenda on multiple fronts.
The House vote was 263 to 158, with 46 Democrats joining every present Republican in supporting the Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan national who was in the US unlawfully. The House vote came two days after the US Senate passed the legislation in a vote of 64 to 35, with a dozen Democratic members backing the bill.
Under the bill, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would be required to detain undocumented immigrants charged with crimes such as “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting”. It would also allow state attorneys general to sue the federal government if they believed their states had been harmed by its failure to enforce immigration laws.
The notable Democratic support for the bill underscores how the party is feeling pressure to move to the right on immigration after Republicans narrowly won the White House and both chambers of Congress in November. But progressives have expressed outrage over the party’s perceived acquiescence to Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
“Spineless. That’s the only word for the 10 Senate Democrats who handed Maga Republicans a gift they didn’t deserve,” Sarah Dohl, chief campaigns officer of the progressive group Indivisible, said last week, referring to Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) slogan.
“The Laken Riley Act is a racist, xenophobic attack on immigrants that shreds constitutional rights and hands power to extremists like [Texas attorney general] Ken Paxton to hijack federal immigration policy. It’s not just cruel – it’s a train wreck of chaos and bad faith. And yet, Senate Democrats caved,” she added.
Immigrant rights and civil rights groups have expressed additional concerns about how the bill could undermine federal authority and empower Trump to carry out his plan for a mass-deportation program, with opponents arguing that it ignores the principle that someone charged with a crime has not been convicted and is entitled to due process.
“This is an extreme and reactive bill that will authorize the largest expansion of mandatory detention we have seen in decades, sweeping in children, Dreamers, parents of US-citizen children and other longtime members of their communities who even Ice thinks should not be detained,” Sarah Mehta, senior border policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said last week as the bill made its way through Congress.
“This legislation offers no solutions to improve our immigration system, and we thank the senators who stood up for immigrant communities and due process and voted against this harmful, expensive bill – a bill that will not make us safer.”
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Despite those concerns, Trump is expected to swiftly sign the bill once it reaches his desk, making it the first law of his second term. Trump has already used his executive authority to declare a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and call for an end to birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the 14th amendment of the constitution.
That latter proposal has sparked a wave of lawsuits from Democratic-led states and civil rights groups, which may foreshadow many protracted legal battles over Trump’s immigration policies for the next four years.
