Democrat Senator John Fetterman has co-sponsored the Laken Riley Act in the Senate, becoming the first Democrat in the chamber to support it.
The Laken Riley Act would compel immigration authorities to hold illegal immigrants arrested, charged, or convicted of various crimes, such as burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting until they are removed from the country. Had authorities detained and removed Ibarra from the country when he was first arrested for shoplifting, Riley’s killer would’ve never been able to harm her.
The law also enables the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to bypass sanctuary ordinances and detain illegal immigrants if states or local authorities fail to do so, and empowers state attorneys general to sue federal authorities for failing to enforce immigration laws.
While appearing on Fox, Fetterman said “For me it’s ... really common sense. And I’d like to remind everybody that we have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of migrants here illegally that have [been] convicted of crimes. Who wants to allow them to remain in our nation? And now if you’re here illegally and you’re committing crimes and those things, I don’t know why anybody thinks that it’s controversial that they all need to go.”
“There’s 47 of us in the Senate and if we can’t pull up with seven votes, if we can’t get at least seven out of 47, if we can’t then that’s a reason why we lost,” he added.
On Tuesday, the House overwhelmingly passed the bill on a 264 to 159 vote. While a whopping 48 Democrats crossed party lines to approve the measure, 159 others opposed the bill. Reintroduced in the House by Rep. Mike Collins in the 119 Congress, the Laken Riley Act had passed in the same chamber in March 2024 on a 251-170 vote - only 37 Democrats supporting it.
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