On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that focuses on deporting undocumented immigrants who are accused of nonviolent offenses, including shoplifting.
The Laken Riley Act was passed with a vote of 264-159, as 48 Democrats, including Texas Democratic Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, joined Republicans in support. The bill will now be forwarded to the Senate on Friday, where it will require the support of seven Senate Democrats in order to pass, as Republicans currently hold the majority with 53 seats.
The bill is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia. Laken was tragically killed in February 2024 by José Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old man from Venezuela who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border through El Paso in 2022.
Months before the killing, Ibarra had been arrested for shoplifting at a Georgia Walmart but had been subsequently released.
In November, Ibarra received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of Riley.
“The death of Laken Riley was a senseless and preventable tragedy, and now that her murderer is behind bars, we owe it to Laken to do everything we can to ensure any migrant who enters the country illegally and commits a crime is never given the opportunity to harm innocent Americans,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said in a statement.
Conservative lawmakers have used Riley’s murder as a catalyst to push for stricter immigration laws, despite studies showing that recent immigrants in the United States actually have lower crime rates compared to U.S.-born citizens.
According to Alex Nowrasteh, an analysis conducted by the Cato Institute reveals that undocumented immigrants in Georgia have a lower incarceration rate for homicide compared to legal immigrants and U.S. citizens. The rate stands at 61 per 100,000 people for undocumented immigrants, while it is 90 per 100,000 for legal immigrants and U.S. citizens.
“The numbers indicate that illegal immigrants are not a disproportionate criminal threat, they do not increase crime rates, and extra enforcement of normal immigration laws will not lower crime rates,” Nowrasteh wrote in his analysis.
In the previous year, when the House introduced a similar bill, 37 Democrats, including three Texas Democrats, voted in favor of it.
This year, Democrats have shown a surprising increase in support for President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. This includes endorsing his plans for mass deportations of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Under the current system, any immigrant, regardless of legal status, who commits serious or violent crimes, such as aggravated felonies, drug possession, or drunk driving, can be arrested and ultimately deported. However, the proposed changes seek to expand the deportation process by mandating the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of lesser offenses like burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.
Under the proposal, state attorneys general would have the authority to take legal action against the federal government in cases where a previously detained immigrant, who entered the U.S. unlawfully, is released and subsequently commits additional crimes.
Critics from the Democratic Party and immigrant rights organizations have strongly condemned the bill, arguing that it is a public safety measure in name only, designed to target immigrants rather than genuinely enhance public safety.
“This is political gamesmanship at its worst, planting a trap for lawmakers by exploiting a tragedy,” said Kerri Talbot, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, a national organization that advocates for fair immigration policies. “This bill weaponizes the justice system to incarcerate immigrants for minor infractions, empowers extremists to rewrite immigration policy, and tears apart families who have long called this country home.”
