
(Editor’s note: We reprint this article with the permission of Ethnic Media Services. We must point out that San Joaquin Valley Reps. Jim Costa (D–Fresno), Adam Gray (D–Merced) and Josh Harder (D–Tracy) voted in support of the Laken Riley Act, which passed the House on Jan. 7. Other California Democrats supporting the act were Reps. Mike Levin (D–San Juan Capistrano), Dave Min (D–Irvine), Derek Tran (D–Orange) and George Whitesides (D–Agua Dulce). Every California Republican supported the act.
Other California Democrats acted with more dignity and opposed the act: Reps. Pete Aguilar, Ami Bera, Nanette Barragán, Julia Brownley, Salud Carbajal, Judy Chu, Gil Cisneros, Lou Correa, Mark DeSaulnier, Laura Friedman, John Garamendi, Robert Garcia, Jimmy Gomez, Jared Huffman, Sara Jacobs, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Ro Khanna, Sam Liccardo, Ted Lieu, Zoe Lofgren, Doris Matsui, Kevin Mullin, Jimmy Panetta, Nancy Pelosi, Scott Peters, Luz Rivas, Linda Sánchez, Brad Sherman, Lateefah Simon, Eric Swalwell, Mark Takano, Mike Thompson, Norma Torres, Juan Vargas and Maxine Waters.)
The House’s lightspeed passage of the Laken Riley Act (H.R. 29) is a worrisome indicator of the ongoing decay in Congressional decision-making that results in dysfunctional laws.
Its support among Democrats suggests that in this new political climate, few are willing to stand in defense of immigrant rights.
The bill, named for the 22-year-old University of Georgia student killed in 2024 by a Venezuelan migrant, sanctions the unconstitutional detention and possible deportation of thousands of non-citizens who have never committed a crime.
“It is completely outside the norms of the American legal system to subject people to incarceration without even the possibility of bond after merely the arrest/charging state,” said Nithya Nathan-Pineau of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in response to questions over the bill’s provisions.
The bill passed the House this week by a vote of 264-159—with 48 House Democrats joining the Republican majority—as its first new piece of legislation this year. It now heads to the Senate where it appears to be gaining support even among Democratic lawmakers.
Yet, while the Laken Riley Act is now being hailed as a welcome bipartisan effort in “Making America Great Again,” in truth it is a first step toward assembling the administrative machinery to implement mass deportation plans already outlined by President-elect Trump, his advisor Stephen Miller and scores of anti-immigrant legislators.
Worse yet, it moves us even further along a MAGA-inspired pathway toward authoritarian governance.
Much as Republicans did during the 2024 campaign, proponents of the Laken Riley Act are exploiting a real-life tragedy as the rationale for vindictive and poorly designed immigration enforcement measures.
The bill’s broad provisions—requiring detention by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) of any unauthorized migrant in the country accused of a theft-related crime—will detract from more focused and effective identification, apprehension and detention of violent criminals. It will, at the same time, siphon resources from ongoing efforts to block future entry of criminals and terrorists.
Laken Riley’s murderer was, indeed, an unauthorized immigrant, a “monster” as President Trump characterized him, and a shoplifter. But legislation targeting non-citizens merely accused of shoplifting or other nonviolent crimes does little to protect Americans from actual violent crime—which data show is committed at far higher rates by U.S.-born citizens—and similarly fails to address the challenges of border security.
It is in reality political smoke and mirrors, acknowledged Speaker Mike Johnson, a ploy to challenge Democrats’ political identity. And it seems to be working.
“I look forward to continuing to discuss this bill with my colleagues, and I welcome a serious bipartisan conversation about what we need to do to fix our broken immigration system,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D–Ga.), in a statement last month. Warnock voted to begin Senate debate of the bill though he did not say whether he would support final passage.
Support for the bill from elected officials such as Rep. Josh Harder (D–Tracy) and Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelley of Arizona, meanwhile, who represent communities with hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of them non-citizens, raises vexing questions as to why progressive elected officials might so rapidly go along with this MAGA-inspired street theater.
Yet as Democrats rush to paint themselves as serious on immigration and border security following the 2024 shellacking they took on these issues, they run the risk of overlooking the very real threats bills like the Laken Riley Act pose.
According to immigration law expert David Isaacson, who reviewed an earlier version of the bill when it was first presented to Congress last year, the Laken Riley Act would mandate detention without bail of any DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient, asylum applicant or other immigrant who was arrested and deemed to have “entered without inspection.” Those provisions remain in the bill’s current version.
Isaacson goes on to explain that, while current immigration law considers juvenile court outcomes not to be criminal “convictions,” the Laken Riley Act would make these children and youth similarly vulnerable.
Tragically, it seems “playing the game” has become more important in 2025 than bona fide problem-solving as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seek a “magic amulet” to reassure voters they can go about safely in their neighborhoods.
But will the Laken Riley Act actually protect our communities from crime? No. Instead, it simply feeds into President-elect Trump’s absurd assertion that immigrants are mostly criminals, as opposed to law-abiding members of our communities whose contributions are vital to the continued health of our economy.
And like other fake news and political sleight-of-hand, it stands in the way of serious efforts to find more effective solutions, including a streamlining of the overall immigration system to rapidly and fairly adjudicate asylum cases while deploying available funding to apprehend and deport the most dangerous criminals, not teenage shoplifters, or law-abiding DACA recipients and asylum-seekers who have been profiled and detained but who are innocent.
Impact of the Laken Riley Act
The Laken Riley Act fails to improve public safety while denying immigrants their rights. To start, the act is redundant as the Department of Homeland Security already has statutory authority to detain any undocumented person.
What the Laken Riley Act will do is deny detained immigrants, including people charged (but not convicted) of minor crimes like shoplifting an opportunity for a bond hearing, which goes against the constitutional concept of due process and innocence until guilt is proven. This forced detention might even prevent immigrants from attending their criminal court hearings, impeding prosecutors from proceeding with charges. Furthermore, Black and Brown people, who are arrested at disproportionately high rates, will suffer the most.
The proposed legislation would also disrupt the governmental balance of powers and lead to dysfunction in the executive branch. Under the Laken Riley Act, both conservative and liberal state attorneys general will have the right to sue the U.S. government over a wide range of immigration policies. Any administration, whether Democrat or Republican, will likely face endless court challenges when trying to make new immigration policies.
It is disgraceful that Democrats, while ignoring the rights of U.S. citizens to even sue the government to release their family members, would agree to a bill that would allow states to sue the government to keep people in prison. Why are Democrats not asking for changes that would help immigrants and U.S. citizens?
The murder of Laken Riley is a grave tragedy that has been exploited to pass an anti-immigrant and unconstitutional bill that does nothing for public safety.