A Dangerous New Immigration Bill
Earlier this week, the U.S. Congress passed its first bill of the new session, which is known as the Laken Riley Act. The sweeping immigration bill would demand the detention of any undocumented immigrant that is charged with a nonviolent crime like theft or burglary.
The bill is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in Georgia when she was running in February 2024. The man charged with her murder was an undocumented migrant from Venezuela who had previously been detained for misdemeanor theft, but was released. The case became an anti-immigration flashpoint for Republicans.
But many immigration experts are warning that the Laken Riley Act is a deeply flawed bill, which would provide broad authority for states attorneys general over immigration matters. This provision was flagged by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. In a thread on Bluesky, the fellow noted that the law “authorizes state AG’s like Ken Paxton to seek court orders forcing the executive branch to detain and deport specific people, overturn individual humanitarian parole decisions, and cease issuing visas to entire countries.”
Immigration has always been under the purview of the federal government, which this bill upends. Before the bill was up in the Congress, the ACLU penned a letter warning members of the ramifications of H.R. 29. They warned lawmakers that “these provisions are a drastic and dangerous expansion of the authority of a state official that will open the floodgates for politicized and frivolous lawsuits against the federal government for individual enforcement decisions.”
Overall, 48 House Democrats voted for the bill, including two from Texas: Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine shared a statement about why she voted against the bill. She criticized the bill for being about “politics” and “not protecting communities.” Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar posted a video about why she voted against the bill, even though she supports comprehensive immigration reform. Escobar indicated that the bill sidesteps due process for immigrants, while also granting more authority to Ken Paxton.
In a column for MSNBC, Reichlin-Melnick outlines various scenarios that could occur under this new bill. Paxton could very well be emboldened to force the federal government to suspend visas from a country like China or India. “Giving a state attorney general veto power over everything from visa bans to individual release decisions made by ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers, threatens to make the entire immigration system even more chaotic than it already is,” writes Reichlin-Melnick.
On Thursday, the Senate advanced the Laken Riley Act and will begin debate on the bill Friday. Just nine Democrats voted against it.
