Bill hiking illegal immigration enforcement is first to advance in new GOP Congress

WASHINGTON (CN) — House Republicans on Tuesday set the tone for President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious policy agenda, advancing a controversial immigration bill just days into the new session of Congress.

The Laken Riley Act cleared the House on a 252-157 vote. It’s the first bill to advance through Congress since the GOP formally took control of both chambers last week.

Named for a 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student killed last year by a Venezuelan immigrant, the legislation would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants that are charged with theft, burglary or shoplifting. The measure would also allow states to sue the Homeland Security Department for failing to adhere to federal immigration policies such as parole or detention requirements.

The bill, Georgia Representative Mike Collins said Tuesday, would address an issue that he and other Republicans say contributed to Riley’s murder. Jose Ibarra, who was sentenced in November to life in prison without parole for Riley’s murder, had previously been cited for shoplifting by police in Athens, Georgia.

“Every part of our system failed Laken that day,” said Collins, who sponsored the Laken Riley Act. “Right now, ICE is unable to detain and deport these illegal criminals who commit these minor level crimes.”

But Democrats argued that the language of Collins’ bill opened up the possibility that undocumented immigrants could be detained and potentially deported even if they were not charged with a crime.

“Mandatory detention has always been reserved for people who are convicted of crimes and actually commit crimes,” Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin said.

Expanding the requirement to include people who have been accused of — and not charged for — minor crimes such as shoplifting, Raskin said, “collapses the distinction” between those offenses and more serious crimes.

Raskin and other Democrats panned the Laken Riley Act as “empty and opportunistic,” accusing Republicans of leveraging the tragedy of Riley’s murder for political ends.

“This is the Republican playbook over and over again,” Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal said. “My Republican colleagues simply want to preserve a broken immigration system as a campaign issue so that they can scapegoat and demonize immigrants.”

Jayapal contended that the GOP’s focus on immigration and border security was a gambit to “distract the American people” from other policy goals, like Trump’s planned tax bill which Democrats have said would mainly benefit the wealthy.

Democrats also took issue with the Laken Riley Act’s provision opening up legal recourse for states against the federal government, arguing that the bill’s language was “likely unconstitutional,” pointing to the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in the case United States v. Texas.

The high court’s 8-1 decision held that states do not have the right to sue the federal government over its authority to set immigration priorities.

Republicans fired back that Democrats had declined to address what they viewed as the failed immigration policies of the Biden administration.

“It is the federal government’s primary responsibility to protect its citizens, and you, my Democrat colleagues, are refusing to do this,” said Wisconsin Representative Derrick Van Orden. “It’s shameful.”

Despite Democratic heartburn about the GOP’s proposed legislation, a group of 48 House Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for the Laken Riley Act.

On the Senate side, the measure is sponsored by Pennsylvania Representative John Fetterman — and other Senate Democrats, such as Michigan Representative Gary Peters, have signaled they would vote for the bill as well.

Immigration issues have been a centerpiece of Trump’s policy agenda and were the backbone of his campaign platform. The president-elect has promised for months to undertake a mass deportation operation soon after he takes office on Jan. 20 and has said he will complete construction of the much-vaunted wall along the country’s southwestern border.

However, Trump last year shepherded the demise of bipartisan border security legislation that had made its way through the Senate. Some critics at the time argued that the then-presidential candidate had fought to kill the bill to deny President Joe Biden a political win and preserve immigration as a potent election issue.

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