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The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that would make undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes such as shoplifting eligible for deportation.
The Laken-Reilly Act passed by a vote of 264-159, with 48 Democrats joining Republicans, including Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen. The bill was introduced Friday in the Senate, where Republicans hold a majority. Republicans control 53 seats and would need seven Senate Democrats to vote yes for the bill to pass.
The bill would support Laken, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student in Georgia who was killed in February 2024 by Jose Antonio Ybarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan man who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border through El Paso. Named after Riley. 2022.
A few months before the murder, Ybarra was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting at a Walmart in Georgia, but was later released.
Ybarra was convicted of Riley’s murder and sentenced in November to life in prison without parole.
“The death of Laken Riley was a senseless and avoidable tragedy. Now that her killer is behind bars, we stand behind Laken Riley, an immigrant who entered the country illegally and committed a crime. We have an obligation to do everything in our power to ensure that no one has the opportunity to harm innocent Americans,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said in a statement.
Riley’s murder is a rallying cry for conservative lawmakers to adopt tougher immigration laws, even though studies show recent immigrants to the U.S. have lower crime rates than native-born citizens. became a people.
Undocumented immigrants in Georgia are imprisoned for murder at a rate of 61 per 100,000, according to an analysis by Alex Nowras, deputy director for economic and social policy research at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. By comparison, the rate for legal immigrants is 90 per 100,000. and U.S. citizens.
“The numbers show that illegal immigration is not an unjust criminal threat, does not increase crime rates, and that additional enforcement of regular immigration laws does not reduce crime rates,” Nowras said in his analysis. Ta.
When a similar bill was introduced in the House last year, 37 Democrats, including three Texas Democrats, voted in favor of it.
This year’s surge in Democratic support indicates that some Democrats are willing to support President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including mass deportations of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. It shows that.
Currently, immigrants, including legal permanent U.S. residents, can be arrested and ultimately deported if they commit serious or violent crimes such as aggravated felonies, drug possession, and drunk driving. However, current proposals would expand the deportation pipeline by requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants accused of less serious crimes such as robbery, theft, theft, and shoplifting. I’m aiming for it.
The proposal would also allow state attorneys general to sue the federal government if federal authorities release an immigrant who entered the United States illegally and then committed another crime.
Democrats and a majority of immigrant rights groups criticized the bill as an anti-immigrant proposal disguised as a public safety measure.
“This is political maneuvering at its worst, using a tragedy to trap members of Congress,” said Kelly Talbot, co-executive director of Immigration Hub, a national organization that advocates for fair immigration policies. . “This bill would weaponize the justice system to jail immigrants for minor violations, empower extremists to rewrite immigration policy, and tear apart families who have long called this country home.”
