By Voting for Laken Riley Act, Democrats Cede More Power to Anti-Immigrant Right

What does the Democratic Party stand for? That question has plagued Capitol Hill, and the voting public, for at least a decade. Now, in the wake of Kamala Harris’s crushing presidential defeat, as Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, the Democrats’ identity crisis shows no sign of abating. Thanks to a wall of support from Senate Democrats, the Laken Riley Act — a GOP-sponsored, anti-immigrant bill — is on track to be one of the first pieces of legislation Trump will sign into law when he takes office. This is, of course, after the Democratic Party tacked hard to the right on immigration in its 2024 platform, caved to right-wing myths about the border, rubber-stamped President Joe Biden’s crackdown on asylum seekers — and still lost the presidential election.

Perhaps “identity crisis” is too generous. This is the real Democratic Party in 2025, maybe unable but likely unwilling to mount a strong defense against an anti-immigrant agenda that spans from the center to the far right. Democratic politicians have shown that they are committed to digging this hole. Unfortunately, it’s everyone else — particularly undocumented and marginalized folks — who must lie in it.

House Republicans introduced the Laken Riley Act last year, named after a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in Georgia by an undocumented immigrant in February. Jose Ibarra, Riley’s convicted killer, had previously been arrested for misdemeanor shoplifting and driving a child without a helmet on a scooter. Republicans quickly seized on the tragedy, pointing to Ibarra’s arrest record as evidence that he should’ve been deported before Riley’s murder could take place.

The Laken Riley Act would require federal authorities to detain immigrants without bail if they are arrested for theft-related crimes. The operative word here being arrested — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be compelled to hold immigrants who have not necessarily been charged with or even convicted of a crime. Undocumented immigrants who are criminally convicted on misdemeanor or felony charges already face deportation, which is one reason why legal experts say the proposed law amounts to security theater.

The bill’s provisions raise serious concerns for due process and erodes the principle of presumption of innocence. This does not bode well for anyone’s civil liberties — U.S. citizens, documented immigrants and undocumented immigrants alike. Nevertheless, the bill passed the House with 48 Democrats in support, and earlier this week, senators voted 82-10 to move the bill forward in the process. Two Democratic senators, Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) and John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) co-sponsored the Senate version.

But the federal detention mandate is not the only or even necessarily the most concerning part of the bill. The Laken Riley Act also allows state attorneys general to sue the federal government over its handling of individual immigrants and demand that the State Department stop issuing visas for countries that don’t allow deported citizens to return. Immigrant rights advocates have noted how granting states new, broad powers over federal immigration policy could quickly backfire.

“You could see [Texas Atty. Gen.] Ken Paxton suing to block all H-1B visas from China. You could see somebody trying to prevent all business tourism from India,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council told the Los Angeles Times. “The prospect of 677 different federal district court judges around the country having the power to order the secretary of State to impose sweeping visa bans on other countries threatens to upend our system of government.”

The expansive scope of the Laken Riley Act should be easy for House and Senate Democrats to shoot down. They could, for instance, express a commitment to the preservation of civil liberties and due process, or point out how allowing states to sue the federal government in such a way would wreak havoc in the federal court system. They could emphasize that immigration is — gasp — not something to be feared, that immigrants are people too, and that the bill is little more than cynical fearmongering for political gain. They could even appeal to the government’s bottom line: Democrats estimated that the bill would incur costs of $83 billion over the next three years, as the detention mandate would require an additional 118,500 beds, 40,000 more ICE personnel and 25 more deportation flights each week. That alone should be enough to shut the bill down — but dozens of Democrats continue to cling to anti-immigrant policies in a desperate bid for popularity.

All is not lost. There are, of course, many Democrats who have opposed the bill, including the 159 House Representatives who voted against it.

“It is essentially a highway to mass deportation, and you can have any number of people picked up and put into the criminal justice system simply for being accused, with no conviction, no admission of guilt,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) told MSNBC on January 12.

Two days later, Jayapal emphasized her opposition to the bill again on Facebook, noting that it “isn’t about making our communities safer.”

What the Laken Riley Act really is, she wrote, is these three things: “Unjust. Inhumane. Unconstitutional.”