WASHINGTON (CN) — The House on Wednesday voted to approve the final version of a controversial immigration bill, sending it to the White House and making it what is likely to be the first legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump.
The lower chamber voted 263-156 to pass the Laken Riley Act, a Republican-led bill that would expand detention requirements for federal immigration enforcement and hand state attorneys general broad authority to sue the federal government over immigration law.
Nearly two dozen House Democrats joined the entire Republican caucus — save for one non-voting member — in approving the measure, named for a 22-year-old Georgia woman killed in 2024 by a Venezuelan immigrant.
If it’s signed into law, the legislation would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants here illegally who are charged, convicted or even arrested for a bevy of crimes. Though the bill as introduced only expanded detention requirements for “theft-related” offenses like burglary and shoplifting, lawmakers added additional crimes, such as assaulting a law enforcement officer and causing death or bodily harm, to the list of crimes that trigger detainment.
And in addition to new requirements for ICE, the Laken Riley Act hands states the power to sue the federal government over its adherence to immigration law.
Some Democrats and immigration rights advocates have warned that the measure will strip immigrants of their due process rights under the law by forcing authorities to detain people simply arrested in connection with a crime. Lawmakers have also pointed out that requiring detention for minor crimes will place unnecessary strain on ICE and blur the lines between minor offenses and more serious crimes.
“We’re seeing a fundamental erosion of our civil rights in this bill,” New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor Wednesday afternoon. “If a person is so much as accused of a crime — if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting — they will be rounded up, put into a private detention camp, and sent out for deportation without a day in court.”
Ocasio-Cortez argued there is no chance federal immigration authorities would be able to handle the influx of detainments prescribed by the Laken Riley Act and that private prison facilities would fill in the gaps.
“It is atrocious that people are lining their pockets with private prison profits in the name of a horrific tragedy and the victim of a crime,” she said.
But Republicans, still riding high off Trump’s election victory, claimed the measure would fulfill Americans’ desire to see stronger border security measures.
“Listening to my colleagues, Democrats on the other side of the aisle, complain and whine and defend illegal aliens who break the law the minute they cross our border is pathetic,” fumed Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. “The American people are tired of it.”
Republican lawmakers have held up Laken Riley’s murder as an emblem of what they say were failed immigration policies of the Joe Biden administration. They have argued that Jose Ibarra, the man convicted for murdering Riley, should have been detained before he was able to commit such a crime — he had been cited previously for shoplifting.
The GOP celebrated the Laken Riley Act’s passage Wednesday evening.
“Criminal illegal aliens must be detained, deported and NEVER allowed back into our country,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a post on X. “The American people demand and deserve safety and security.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the upper chamber’s most vocal immigration hawks, applauded the measure’s passage and said he “eagerly” awaits Trump’s signature.
“I am relieved that this young lady and her family will receive a small token of justice through this legislation,” he said of Laken Riley.
“We’re following through on the mandate the American people gave us, and we will Make America Safe Again,” said Missouri Representative Bob Onder.
Meanwhile, some civil rights advocates expressed their disappointment Wednesday with Democrats who reached across the aisle to support the Republican-led immigration bill.
“Democrats need to get back on track, otherwise the GOP will continue to bulldoze them — and people will get hurt,” said Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive Indivisible Project. “Many Democrats are unhappy with the direction the leadership is going and rightly calling out the shortsightedness of the current plan — or lack of plan.”
If Trump signs the Laken Riley Act, as he is expected to, it will add to a growing list of anti-immigrant actions the president has taken in the early days of his presidency. The White House has already issued executive orders declaring a national emergency at the country’s southern border and rolling back birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants.
The Trump administration further announced Wednesday that it would send as many as 1,500 active-duty troops to the border.