The United States House of Representatives voted Tuesday to pass a bill designed to tackle illegal immigration, named after Georgia student Laken Riley, who was murdered by an illegal immigrant.
The Laken Riley Act was designed by Republicans to increase resources for border security, including enabling officers to detain migrants charged with minor offenses, rather than allowing them to remain in communities.
Why It Matters
The bill was reintroduced to the House Monday and is one of the GOP's first acts of the new Congress, signaling the ruling party's intentions to deliver President-elect Donald Trump's promises on immigration as soon as possible, including mass deportations and stricter border measures.
What To Know
Laken Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia. On February 22, 2024, she went out for a run and never came home. Her body was later found in woodland close to the campus in Athens.
In November, a 26-year-old Venezuelan national, Jose Ibarra, was convicted of her murder. During his trial, his affiliation with the Tren de Aragua gang was revealed.
GOP lawmakers, and Trump himself, focused on Riley's case, and those of murdered 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray and 37-year-old Rachel Morin, as examples of rising illegal immigrant crime which needed to be tackled with stronger border security.
Ahead of the bill even making it to the Senate, Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman joined his GOP colleagues in supporting the act.
"Laken Riley's story is a tragic reminder of what's at stake when our systems fail to protect people," Fetterman said in a statement to Newsweek. "No family should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one to preventable violence. Immigration is what makes our country great. I support giving authorities the tools to prevent tragedies like this one while we work on comprehensive solutions to our broken system."
What is the Laken Riley Act?
The Laken Riley Act, also known as H.R. 29, was first introduced by Alabama Senator Katie Britt during the previous Congress. While it passed in the House, it stood little chance of passing in the then-Democrat-controlled Senate.
It was reintroduced by Georgia Republican Representative Mike Collins on January 6, 2025, the first day of the new Congress fully controlled by the GOP.
Included in the bill are two main changes to immigration law. Firstly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would have to detain non-U.S. nationals charged with theft, burglary, shoplifting, or larceny offenses, regardless of their immigration status.
The second major part of the act grants state attorneys general the ability to sue the Secretary of Homeland Security if those migrants are not detained, which the bill's sponsors argue will ensure the first measure is enforced.
Immigration detainers are currently only issued for immigrants charged or convicted of violent or other serious offenses. They allow ICE officers to take custody of individuals once local law enforcement is finished with them, such as when a sentence is served.
While the Laken Riley Act has been touted as part of a wider effort to strengthen border security and deal with immigrants charged with crimes, migrant advocacy groups have warned that it could result in more discrimination while doing little to increase public safety.
The act would also allow attorneys general to seek the halting of visas being granted to certain nationals, appearing to grant states these powers rather than the federal government.
During Tuesday's debate in the House, Democrats accused Republicans of seeking to scapegoat immigrants who may be innocent of the crimes they are accused of while failing to actually deal with the issue of a lack of resources for ICE.
New York Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler expressed his condolences to Riley's family.
"I wish we were considering legislation that is worthy of her name," he said on the House floor, adding that the Laken Riley Act would potentially affect due process.
Who Is Jose Ibarra?
Representative Collins argues that the bill directly addresses federal policy failures which led to Ibarra killing Riley almost a year ago. In the House on Tuesday, Republicans argued that if the law they were pushing had been in place, deaths like Riley's would have been avoided.
The Venezuelan was arrested shortly after Riley's body was discovered. He had killed the student just after 9 a.m. on February 22, with blunt force trauma given as the cause of death.
Ibarra arrived in the U.S. in September 2022, having crossed the southwest border illegally in El Paso, Texas. Immigration officials detained him but later released him, while his case was pending. He was later arrested in New York in August 2023, but it was not clear at which point between that date and February 2024 he arrived in Georgia.
The 26-year-old was linked to Tren de Aragua (TdA) during his trial in November. The gang, whose members have been reported in multiple states, is notorious for its violent acts, drug trafficking and people smuggling.
What People Are Saying
Representative Mike Collins, in a press release Monday: "The Laken Riley Act gives our law enforcement the tools they need to protect their communities and ensure that no more innocent lives are lost to a broken immigration and criminal justice system. I am proud that the House was able to come together and pass this bill. If the Senate will do its job, President Trump will make it law."
Senator Katie Britt, in a press release: "This Congress, my first priority out of the gate will be strengthening border security and interior immigration enforcement—something the American people overwhelmingly voted to support in November."
National Immigration Law Center, in a press release: "The Laken Riley Act is a manifestation of cynical politics. The majority is manipulating a personal tragedy to scapegoat immigrants. In reality, there is no correlation between immigration status and criminality. This bill is not a public safety measure, but rather an attack on established constitutional protections that would do nothing to keep communities safe if enacted into law."
Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp, on X: "Laken Riley and every American tragically impacted by Joe Biden's open border insanity deserve the unanimous support of Congress for the Laken Riley Act."
Democratic Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, on the House floor: "Congress has never even appropriated sufficient resources to detain all non-citizens who do fall under the current mandatory detention categories. Even President Trump, during his first term, never tried to detain all migrants theoretically subject to mandatory detention. So, this extremely elastic new provision adds nothing to the equation other than more empty rhetoric and greater bureaucratic bloat."
What's Next
The bill was passed by the House with 264 votes to 159. 48 Democrats were among those in favor. It will now head to the Senate.
Democrats against the bill argue that the bill alone will not bring effective change, as more resources are needed in order for ICE and other immigration agencies to be able to deliver on the GOP's agenda.
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