WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate is set to pass a bill this week that immigration lawyers and experts warn could have far-reaching consequences, such as overwhelming federal courts with challenges from state attorneys general and forcing some migrants – including children and teenagers – into custody rapid detention and deportation.
The legislation, the Laken Riley Act, p. 5would significantly expand immigrant detention and give state attorneys general broad discretion to challenge federal immigration policies if they become law.
Experts fear the bill would support President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to carry out mass deportations by requiring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to detain a non-citizen arrested, charged or convicted of petty theft – a response to the killings of the 22 – year-old nursing student from Georgia for whom the measure is named.
Laken Riley went for a run and her roommates became worried when she didn’t return home. Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old migrant from Venezuela, was convicted of murder last month and given a life sentence. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he allegedly entered the country illegally in 2022 and was charged with shoplifting, but was not arrested by ICE.
In a presidential election in which immigration was a central issue, the measure received bipartisan support: 48 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted with Republicans to pass it. An overwhelming 32 Senate Democrats and one independent sided with Republicans about a procedural vote to advance the bill.
Senate Democrats have argued that the procedural vote is an opportunity to debate the bill and add amendments, but it is unclear whether Senate Republicans will agree to that process.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, said on the Senate floor before the procedural vote that the bill “is necessary because it is straightforward.”
“I want to be very clear that the only people who would be subject to this law are criminal illegal aliens,” Britt said. “These individuals crossed our border illegally and committed a crime after arriving here. We’re talking about him.”
But immigration lawyers argue that the bill would not only affect undocumented people, but would also entrap some immigrants with legal status, lead to the detention of children, challenge immigration judges’ release and bond decisions, and have the potential to stop the issuance of visas on the international stage.
It is said that the bill is problematic in its definition of “inadmissible immigrants” as those affected.
“This will drive mass deportation,” said Nithya Nathan-Pineau, a policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
She said if someone is arrested and cannot defend themselves – because immigrants are not guaranteed lawyers under U.S. law – a conviction could easily result.
“That conviction can then lead to deportation,” she said. “The goal is to smuggle people into pre-trial detention so that they can be deported.”
Heidi Altman, federal advocacy director at the National Immigration Law Center, said she was concerned about the bill because immigrant communities have long been heavily monitored and are more likely to have contact with law enforcement.
“Severe racial disparities in policing and arrest continue to exist in the United States, and basing immigrant detention on mere arrest clearly and inevitably imports even more racial disparities from the criminal justice system into the immigration system,” she said.
New powers for attorneys general
If it becomes law, the bill would give state attorneys general broad legal authority to challenge federal immigration law. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank American Immigration Council, said the provision is aimed at circumventing a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
In one case from 2023The Supreme Court ruled that Texas and Louisiana had no standing to challenge the Biden administration’s deportation priorities.
Additionally, the bill would allow these attorneys general to challenge the bond decisions of immigration judges.
Immigration courts in the U.S. are already overburdened, Altman said, adding that this type of legal power given to state attorneys general would undermine the authority of immigration judges and “flood the federal courts with decisions that have already been made by immigration judges and are still being made.” be checked once”.
“There cannot be a functioning justice system of any kind that can be challenged at any time and on any individual decision by any attorney general who has a political ax to grind,” she said.
That kind of authority could impact international diplomacy, Reichlin-Melnick said.
These attorneys general could seek a federal court order to force the State Department to stop issuing visas to a country that refuses to accept deportable nationals, so-called recalcitrant countries. These countries include, among others, China, Cuba, India and Russia.
“So there could be a single attorney general and a single federal judge dictating international policy toward other countries around the world, potentially forcing the secretary of state to impose sweeping visa bans on nationals of entire countries,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
Altman said that this kind of authority for a state to stop visas “could potentially be among the most destabilizing measures in terms of the functioning of larger government and also foreign relations.”
“There are concerns about (a) the ability of a foreign nation to trust that the federal government has actual unified control over visa policy, in addition to the destabilizing impact this would have on the ability of people from all destination countries to proceed .” “Travel to and from the United States for various reasons vital to trade and the economy, such as work visas and student visas,” she said.
IF program
While the Republican-driven bill aims to mandate mandatory detention of immigrants without proper legal authorization who are arrested, charged or convicted of theft, shoplifting or burglary, it could also impact people with one Discretionsuch as those on probation or under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, Altman said.
“It is written directly into the (DACA) regulation that the Department of Homeland Security has the discretion and authority to terminate DACA status at any time and on any basis,” she said. “So if the Laken-Riley Act were enacted mandating mandatory incarceration of individuals with a theft offense, what would likely happen under a Trump administration would be that a DACA recipient would be taken into custody and taken into custody by DHS if arrested.” the authority to simultaneously terminate their DACA status.”
Nathan-Pineau added this because the legality of DACA is true is currently being challenged in courtThe recipients are “at risk because the deferred action could be reversed at any time.”
Immigrants who hold green cards, typically referred to as “lawful permanent residents,” would not be subject to mandatory detention unless they are deemed deductible due to a violation of immigration law, Altman said.
For the more than 1 million people with ephemeral protected status, meaning their country is deemed too hazardous to return and therefore they are allowed to work and live in the United States, Altman said, “We would argue that TPS recipients are not subject to this (the bill), but as written it is quite ambiguous.”
Nathan-Pineau raised the issue that the bill does not provide an exemption for immigrant youth and would subject them to mandatory detention.
“There is no exception for children,” she said.
Nathan-Pineau said that in her work as an immigration attorney, she has often represented teenagers accused of shoplifting food.
“This is one of the most common interactions between my young clients and law enforcement,” she said.
“Very extreme in American law”
DHS has broad authority to detain immigrants, Altman said, but “this bill expands a particularly harsh type of detention that we call mandatory detention, because individuals detained under this authority do not even have a detention hearing.” Can apply for bail.”
“Their detention is simply automatic, and this bill expands that category of detention for people based solely on an arrest or a charge, regardless of whether that arrest will ever result in a conviction,” she said. “That’s pretty extreme in American law.”
Reichlin-Melnick noted that the bill does not place a time limit on the application of the petty theft charge.
“If you were arrested for theft when you were 13 and now you’re an undocumented immigrant, you’ve been here for 30 years and you’re applying for a green card through your spouse, you would be (considered) mandatory detention,” he said.
Nathan-Pineau said mandatory detention already applies to immigrants who have “committed fairly serious crimes,” which are not considered property crimes.
Nathan-Pineau said if the bill were to become law, it would have required the incarceration of a former client of hers. This client was a mother in an abusive situation where her abuser refused to give her money for groceries to feed her children, so she shoplifted and was arrested, Nathan-Pineau said.
“We want people to think about things like that when we think about property crimes and burglaries,” she said. “Such offenses can result in someone being imprisoned for months or years.”
Last updated on January 14, 2025, 11:48 am
