The House cleared legislation Wednesday that would impose stricter penalties on undocumented immigrants who commit crimes in the United States, sending the first bill of this Congress to President Donald Trump in his second administration.
Lawmakers voted 263-156 on the Senate-passed version of the bill, named the Laken Riley Act after a 22-year-old woman murdered last year by an undocumented immigrant who had been released after an arrest. There were 46 Democrats who joined Republicans in support of the bill.
That bipartisan support Wednesday is consistent with a House vote weeks ago to approve the House version of the legislation. In the Senate, 12 Democrats joined Republicans in a 64-35 vote to pass that chamber’s own amended version of the bill Monday, after more than a week of debate, amendments and procedural votes on the measure.
The Trump administration did not officially signal whether the president would sign the bill into law, but it fits with his tough-on-immigration campaign promises.
The legislation would require the secretary of Homeland Security to issue a detainer for undocumented immigrants arrested for or convicted of burglary, theft or shoplifting.
The Senate adopted an amendment from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that expanded the list of criminal offenses to include assaulting a police officer, as well as an amendment from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, to require detention of undocumented immigrants if they admit to committing crimes.
The bill would also let states sue the federal government if they feel Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t enforce the previous component of the bill.
On the floor Wednesday ahead of the vote, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a Republican who has urged Congress to advance legislation that would take a tougher approach to immigration, said the bill is needed to ensure violent immigrants are off the streets regardless who is setting policy in the White House.
“Never again should any American — any Texan, any Georgian — have to deal with what was thrust upon them by the Biden administration, in terms of the damage, despair, death, destruction, murders, rapes that perpetuated upon the people we represent,” Roy said.
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