The US Congress passed a bill requiring undocumented immigrants who are arrested for theft or violent crimes to be held in jail pending trial.
The bill, named after Laken Riley – a Georgia nursing student murdered last year by a Venezuelan man – passed the House of Representatives a day after it was approved by the Senate.
The measure cruised through the House by a vote of 263 to 156. Forty-six Democrats defied their party leadership and crossed the political aisle to support the Republican-led measure. In the Senate, 12 Democrats gave their support to the bill.
It now heads to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law – an early legislative win for his fledgling administration on a bill named after a woman whom he often invoked during his campaign.
Ms Riley, 22, was found dead in February 2024 in a wooded area of the University of Georgia campus after she did not return from her morning run.
The migrant convicted of murdering her had been arrested twice, in New York and in Georgia, months before the killing, but was released ahead of trial.
The Laken Riley Act was approved by the Republican-held House last year, but was not taken up at the time in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
It passed with bipartisan support on Wednesday only days after the Senate’s balance of power shifted to Republican control.
The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain migrants if they are charged with certain criminal offences, including theft, shoplifting, burglary, assault against law enforcement or any crimes that result in death “or serious bodily injury of another person”.
It also empowers the attorneys general of states to sue the federal government if their residents feel they have been harmed by national immigration policies.
The bill does not come with new funding for immigration control measures, leading to criticism from Democrats that it will be too expensive to fully implement.
Liberal Democrats criticised the bill as an unfair crackdown on suspects who have not yet been found guilty of a specific crime.
But the bill caused a rift in the party, with some members voting for the measure, describing it as common sense.
During debate on the House floor on Wednesday, several Democrats referred to Trump’s decision to pardon rioters who were convicted over the US Capitol riot in 2021.
“These are the people who want you to believe, want us to believe, that they are keeping violent criminals off the streets,” said Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Speaking ahead of the vote, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said that under the previous Congress, Democrats had shown “they had no desire to stand up for women who were assaulted by people here illegally”.
“You have the same House majority, but you now have a willing partner in the Senate that actually wants to confront real problems facing families so that you don’t have more Laken Riley, you don’t have more murders of innocent people because of an open border,” he added.
A National Institute of Justice study suggests that undocumented migrants in the US are arrested for violent and drug crimes at less than half the rate of native-born citizens.
By BBC News
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
