The U.S. Senate passed the Laken Riley Act with the support of Georgia's two senators.
The law requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain illegal immigrants at the point of arrest for robbery, shoplifting or burglary and allows state attorneys general to sue the federal government for failing to enforce immigration laws.
Final passage by Congress is still pending as some Democrats have expressed a desire to amend the bill.
Republican Representative Mike Collins introduced the bill. His district includes Athens, Georgia, where 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley was murdered during a morning run in February 2024. Jose Ibarra, an immigrant from Venezuela who crossed the border illegally, was convicted of Riley's murder. He was arrested in New York City and Athens before the murder but was never arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Every part of our system failed Laken that day,” Collins said during debate over the act. “There’s nothing we can do to bring them back, but I’ll tell you what: we can make sure something like this never happens again.”
All of Georgia's Republican representatives approved the bill, with Democrat Lucy McBath joining them. Georgia's two Democratic senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, also approved the law.
Political experts warn that this law lays the groundwork for an infringement on people's due process rights in the United States and gives states the power to enforce federal policies.
“When we propose bills like this that require the indefinite detention of someone who only has an arrest in a case that may not even result in an indictment, it ultimately undermines due process rights,” said Senior Adriel Orozco Policy advisor at the nonprofit American Immigration Council.
Orozco said the federal government already has the right to detain an immigrant after an arrest if they are deemed a threat to public safety. Instead, resources should be directed toward investing in immigration courts to process asylum and deportation proceedings more efficiently.
“A compulsory introduction would massively expand incarceration in the country,” he said. “This would require the government to bring many more resources into the system now.”
Orozco said that in addition to spending more taxpayer money to increase the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, these detentions will add to the backlog of more than 3 million cases facing U.S. immigration courts today.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association also expressed concern in a statement about provisions that would allow states to challenge the federal government in immigration enforcement, which could result in state-directed immigration decisions being applied nationwide.
Alabama Republican Katie Britt supported the act in the Senate. She read a statement from Allyson and John Phillips, Riley's mother and stepfather.
“It is impossible to fully describe what was taken from Laken and our family on February 22, 2024. Laken’s life was abundant and extremely promising,” Riley’s parents said in the statement. “Not only did the people who knew and loved her lose a beautiful soul, but so did the world.”
