President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law a measure designed to slap stricter penalties on undocumented immigrants who commit crimes on U.S. soil, giving him a platform to push his top issue during the first bill signing of his whirlwind second term.
Speaking at the bill signing ceremony in the White House’s ornate East Room, Trump hailed the Laken Riley Act as an “important” tool in combat illegal migration while also slamming his predecessor’s immigration policies as ineffective and “stupid.” The bill is named after a 22-year-old Georgia woman murdered last year by an undocumented immigrant who had been released after a previous arrest.
The measure cleared both chambers of Congress last week, with 46 House and 12 Senate Democrats joining Republican lawmakers in voting to advance the legislation. Trump claimed Wednesday that more Democrats “wanted” to support the bill, saying: “They probably felt they couldn’t, but they really wanted to. They don’t understand that would have made them a lot more popular.”
Immigration was among the issues on which Trump banged his campaign drum the hardest, for months pitching a mass deportation program and the use of active-duty military troops to seal the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Laken was attacked, viciously assaulted, beaten, brutalized and murdered by an illegal alien gang member who was set loose into our country by the last administration,” Trump said, taking a jab at the Biden administration, which he claimed allowed “millions” of undocumented individuals into the United States.
“We will keep Laken’s memory alive in our hearts forever,” as well as “forever in the laws of our country, and this is a very important law,” Trump said minutes before putting his black felt pen to paper. “This is something that has brought Democrats and Republicans together. That’s not easy to do. Laken did it.”
Spotted in the crowd of invited guests were Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and a number of GOP lawmakers: House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio; Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley of Iowa; House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee; Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming; Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Katie Britt of Alabama and Joni Ernst of Iowa; and Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has started both the deportation and border initiatives. Nearly half (48 percent) of respondents to a Jan. 24-26 Reuters-Ipsos survey said they supported Trump’s overall immigration approach — higher than his 45 percent overall job approval rating. The poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Polls have shown many Americans appear to appreciate the 47th president’s tough talk on immigration and iron-fist policies. To that end, Trump had this to say Wednesday about the dispute with Colombia over its initial refusal to accept U.S. military flights carrying deported Colombia citizens: “You’re gonna take ‘em — and you’re gonna like it.”
The East Room audience applauded the line, prompting Trump to repeat it a few moments later. The former reality television star often incorporates such ad-libs — his teleprompter had stopped scrolling — into his remarks at official events and political rallies.
Trump signed a presidential memorandum ordering Pentagon officials to ready what he said would be a detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay for people in the U.S. illegally. That order would create up to 30,000 beds for undocumented immigrants, he claimed.
The funds for that plan would be provided via the reconciliation process that congressional Republicans have embarked on, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters Wednesday outside the White House, without offering specific figures.
Speaking before Noem, White House border czar Tom Homan said that the “worst of the worst” would be sent to Guantanamo Bay and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, would operate the facility.
But on the legislation Trump signed Wednesday, some Democrats who voted against it have warned of unintended consequences.
“When a private prison camp opens in your town and they say, ‘We didn’t know this was going to happen,’ know that they did — and they voted for it,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor on Jan. 22.
‘Who the hunter is’
The president’s comments came a day after one of his top immigration policy advisers, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, told reporters that administration officials have been in talks with a number of Central and South American leaders about paring migrant flows toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele “has graciously offered tremendous degrees of cooperation with the United States on all things migration. And we’re hoping that will provide a framework for migration cooperation all throughout the region,” Miller said Tuesday evening in the White House’s north driveway.
Trump and Bukele spoke on Jan. 23, with the White House contending in a summary of the telephone conversation that “the two leaders discussed working together to stop illegal immigration and crack down on transnational gangs like Tren de Aragua. President Trump also praised President Bukele’s leadership in the region and the example he sets for other nations in the Western Hemisphere.”
More broadly, Miller said it was “the president’s expectation that countries all across the world participate fully in the enforcement of immigration laws and, in particular, in the repatriation of their own citizens,” indirectly referring to Trump’s deportation push. His boss later said that ICE had increased its arrest rate by 15 percent since he took office.
“It is a basic international obligation that the United States abides by, that all developed nations abide by, and that we expect all partner nations all across the region to abide by, as well,” Miller said. “And we’ve had incredibly productive conversations, frankly, with nations all across Latin America.”
Despite Democratic objections to the hard-line deportation program, Trump and Miller have exuded confidence in recent days as they’ve made clear it would continue at its current pace.
Miller urged European governments to take note and design their immigration policies after those of the new U.S. administration.
“It’s simple,” he said. “You have to establish a policy that says that anyone who crosses the border is going to be immediately repatriated, that anyone in the country is subject to removal — of course, prioritizing public safety and national security.”
Trump signaled Wednesday he intends to go beyond his aides’ wonky vision, flashing a bit of America’s Wild West past.
“Did this cold blooded criminal go out that fateful morning hunting for women on whom to prey? That’s what he did. He hunted,” he said of Riley’s 26-year-old killer, who was found guilty in November. “It was like a hunter. We’re going to show him who the hunter is.”
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