The House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill to detain illegal immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes, the first legislation President Donald Trump could sign as Congress, with some bipartisan support, moves quickly in line with his plans to impose sanctions. On illegal immigrants. Crackdown on illegal immigration.
The passage of the Laken-Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student who was killed last year by a Venezuelan man, shows how sharply the political debate over immigration has shifted to the right after Trump’s election victory. Immigration policy has often been one of the most entrenched issues in Congress, but a crucial faction of 46 politically vulnerable Democrats joined with Republicans to lift the tough proposal to passage by a 263-156 vote.
“For decades, it has been nearly impossible for our government to agree on solutions to problems at our borders and within our country,” said Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican. She called this legislation “perhaps the most important immigration enforcement bill” Congress will pass in nearly three decades.
However, the bill requires a massive increase in the capabilities of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but does not include any new funding.
At the same time, the new president launched a series of executive orders aimed at closing Mexico’s borders to immigration and ultimately deporting millions of immigrants without permanent legal status in the United States. On Wednesday, Trump also canceled refugee resettlement, and his administration has indicated an intention to prosecute local law enforcement officials who do not enforce the new immigration policies.
Republican congressional leaders have made clear they intend to follow suit, though their toughest challenge will be finding a way to approve funding to actually implement Trump’s hard-line plans.
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“What it does is launch what will ultimately be our legislative agenda,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Los Angeles.
House Republicans initially passed the legislation last year with support from 37 Democrats in a move intended to deliver a political rebuke of then-President Joe Biden’s handling of the southern border. Then it weakened in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
This year, Republicans, who now control both chambers of Congress, have made this their top priority. When the bill was presented to the Senate, 12 Democrats voted to pass it, and when the House of Representatives voted on a version of the bill earlier this month, 48 Democrats supported it.
The vast majority of adults in the United States favor deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, according to a recent study by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. However, only about 37% of adults in the United States support deporting illegal immigrants to the United States who have not been convicted of a crime.
“Although the bill is not perfect, it sends a clear message that we believe criminals should be deported,” said Representative Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York who called on his party to support tougher immigration measures.
Under this legislation, federal authorities would be required to detain any immigrant arrested or charged with crimes such as shoplifting. The scope of the proposal was expanded in the Senate to also include those accused of assaulting a police officer or crimes that result in someone being injured or killed.
The bill also gives legal standing to state prosecutors to sue the federal government for harm caused by federal immigration decisions. This gives states new authority to set immigration policy when they were already trying to undo presidential decisions under the Trump and Biden administrations. Democrats have pushed unsuccessfully to eliminate that provision from the bill in the Senate, saying it would inject more uncertainty and partisanship into immigration policy.
Ultimately, the Trump administration will likely struggle to implement the new requirements unless Congress follows up on funding later this year. Republicans are currently strategizing how to push their priorities through Congress through a partisan process known as budget reconciliation. They estimated the cost of funding Trump’s border and deportation priorities at about $100 billion.
“Trump has put together the largest domestic logistics project of our lifetime — deporting the vast majority of illegal aliens who are in the United States,” Ken Cuccinelli, who ran US Citizenship and Immigration Services during Trump’s first presidency, told the Senate. Painting recently.
Cuccinelli said it will require an increase in the number of immigration judges, prosecutors and other staff, but Trump has also paved the way for the use of military forces, bases and other resources to carry out mass deportations.
DHS estimated that implementing the Laken-Riley Act would cost $26.9 billion in the first year, including an increase of 110,000 ICE detention beds.
Most Democrats criticized the bill’s lack of funding as evidence of a piecemeal approach that would do little to fix problems in the immigration system, but burden federal authorities with new requirements.
“The bill’s authors claimed it would arrest and detain dangerous criminals, but it won’t because it is a completely unfunded mandate,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Others have raised concerns that the bill would strip due process rights to immigrants, including minors or beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Unaccompanied Arrivals program. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said federal authorities will now have to prioritize detaining immigrants arrested for minor crimes like shoplifting, rather than those who commit violent crimes.
Overall, there is no evidence that immigrants are more vulnerable to violent crimes. Many studies have found that immigrants commit lower crime rates than those born in the United States. Groups that advocate for restrictive immigration policies dispute or reject these findings.
But Republicans pointed out the bill’s name, Laken Riley, and how she was killed by a Venezuelan immigrant who had previously been arrested by local authorities but released while he pursued his own immigration case.
“If this act had been the law of the land, he would not have had the opportunity to kill her,” said Rep. Mike Collins, R-Georgia.
