President Donald Trump is poised to sign the first bill of his new administration, and it is named after a slain Georgia nursing student whose name became a rallying cry during his White House campaign.
If signed into law, the Laken Riley Act would require the detention of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes. The bill won bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.
Here are some things to know about the Laken Riley Act:
Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing when she went out for a run on Feb. 22, 2024. Prosecutors said she was encountered by Jose Antonio Ibarra, who killed her during a struggle. Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial and was found guilty in November of murder and other crimes by a judge, who alone heard and decided the case. He was sentenced to life without parole.
Trump and other Republicans blamed former President Joe Biden for her death because Ibarra had been arrested for illegal entry in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas, amid an unprecedented surge in migration and released to pursue his case in immigration court.
“If this act had been the law of the land, he never would have had the opportunity to kill her,” said Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican.
Biden mentioned Riley during his State of the Union address last year as he spoke about border security and after U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted at him, "Say her name!"
Under the new law, federal officials would be required to detain any migrant arrested or charged with crimes like shoplifting or assaulting a police officer or crimes that injure or kill someone.
“If you come into this country illegally and you commit a crime, you should not be free to roam the streets of this nation,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who helped push the bill through the Senate.
The bill also empowers state attorneys general to sue the federal government for harm caused by failures or decisions in immigration enforcement that harm states or people. That includes releasing migrants from custody or failing to detain migrants who have received deportation orders.
The provision gives states some power in setting immigration policy when they have been trying to push back against presidential decisions under both the Trump and Biden administrations.
While Republicans control both chambers of Congress, 46 Democrats in the House and 12 Democrats in the Senate supported the measure.
Some have raised concerns that the bill would strip due process rights for migrants, including minors or recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“In the wake of tragedy we are seeing a fundamental erosion of our civil rights,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a New York Democrat. “In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they would be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and sent out for deportation without a day in court.”
Most Democrats criticized the lack of funding in the bill, arguing the new law would not solve immigration problems but would impose new requirements on federal authorities. Democrats on the Appropriations Committee estimate the bill would cost $83 billion over the next three years, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said the bill is “a totally unfunded mandate.”
Democrats who supported it were mostly from five battleground states and said their constituents demanded more border security and supported deportations of migrants accused of crimes.
“Anyone who commits a crime should be held accountable. That’s why I voted to pass the Laken Riley Act,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said on social media after its passage.
New Hampshire Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner also supported the bill. Shaheen and Warner are each up for a fourth term next year.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who also backed the bill because he wants a “secure border,” was the first Senate Democrat to meet with Trump after the election. He has met with many of Trump’s Cabinet picks and broken with his own party on some policy.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, whose parents are immigrants from Mexico and Colombia, was just elected in November and became Arizona's first Latino senator. He said he supported the bill.
“We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law, to prevent situations like what occurred to Laken Riley,” he said in a statement.
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