Fetterman pushes Democrats to back Laken Riley Act

Ten months ago, Senate Democrats wouldn’t consider cracking down on criminal illegal immigrants. But that was before the election. Now in the minority in both chambers of Congress, some Democrats are seeing the light.

“This is a blinding flash of common sense,” Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday. Earlier in the week, he told Fox News that if more Democrats do not join Republicans to pass the Laken Riley Act, named for a college student who was murdered by an illegal immigrant, then they haven’t learned from election losses in November.

“There’s 47 of us in the Senate,” Fetterman told Fox. “If we can’t pull up with seven votes … then that’s a reason why we lost.”

The Senate is scheduled to consider the bill this week after voting 84-9 on Thursday to bring it to the floor. As the test vote happened, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., eagerly raised two thumbs up at her colleagues on the Senate floor. Just starting a vote on whether to vote was more progress than she had seen on the measure in nearly a year.

Last February, 22-year-old Laken Riley was attacked and killed while jogging at the University of Georgia. The man convicted in the murder, Jose Antonio Ibarra, illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with his wife in 2022 and claimed asylum. Authorities released him into the country to wait for an asylum trial date. He was later charged with misdemeanors, one for child endangerment in New York and another for stealing from a Walmart in Athens, Ga. A bench warrant was issued for Ibarra in December 2023 after he failed to appear for his court date on the shoplifting charges.

When police arrested Ibarra for Riley’s murder in February, he presented officers with a fake green card. Riley’s body was found with lethal blunt force trauma to the head in the woods along her running route. According to evidence filed during trial, she had Ibarra’s DNA under her fingernails, indicating a fight.

The nursing student’s murder became a rallying cry for border reform during the 2024 presidential campaign. Former President Donald Trump met with Riley’s parents behind his rally stage in Georgia in March. That month, Britt drafted a bill in Riley’s name.

The Laken Riley Act would authorize Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain anyone in the country illegally if they have been convicted or charged with a theft-related crime. That includes burglary, theft, larceny, and shoplifting. Current law allows ICE and Customs and Border Protection to detain someone without legal status only if they are convicted of a felony. Under the act, authorities could detain the subject until charges are dropped or the subject is deported. A portion of the bill would also allow states to sue federal agencies for failing to enforce border laws “if the state or its residents experience harm, including financial harm in excess of $100.”

The House version of the Laken Riley Act passed in March 2024 along narrow party lines. But the Senate version stalled when then–Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did not bring it to the floor or send it to committee. Earlier this week, the House again passed the bill, this time removing language that censured President Joe Biden for his handling of border security. Forty-eight Democrats voted in favor of the bill, 11 more than the last time. On the Senate side, every Republican co-sponsored Britt’s bill. On Tuesday, Fetterman added his name to the list.

Some Democrats worry that indefinite detentions could run afoul of due process. The bill allows arrest and detention if a subject is simply charged with a crime. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Congress this week urging members to vote no, expressing worries about wrongful detention of people who have some legal status such as participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The letter also stated that the bill authorizes states to overturn an immigration judge’s decision to release a detainee who is not a flight risk or a danger to communities.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., voted to advance the bill but said he wanted to see amendments related to due process.

“Triggering mandatory detention by arrest rather than conviction is unusual,” Kaine told WORLD. “But we can get into the discussion of the bill, and see if we can make it better.”

Democrats also had budget concerns. In the 2022 fiscal year, the Bureau of Prisons found that the average cost to detain a federal inmate was roughly $120 per day. An ICE memo drafted last month found that additional detention beds and personnel would require more than $3 billion in additional funding in fiscal year 2025. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a member of both the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Finance committees, said she hasn’t seen a good explanation for how to fund that extra burden.

“I support making our communities safer, but it is important that we not pass a law that spends money without increasing overall safety,” Warren told WORLD. “I would like to see the bill amended to include safety provisions that actually work. Instead of focusing on teenage shoplifters, [it should] focus on people who present a significant threat.”

Republicans argue that immigrants without legal status in the country do not enjoy the same rights as citizens.

“They are already criminals,” Britt said in her floor speech on Thursday. “We’re only talking about individuals who entered our country illegally and then committed at least one crime after doing so.”

Britt also lamented the lack of movement on the bill in the last Senate. “We obviously would have loved—and asked for—a hearing and a mark-up in Senate Judiciary,” she said. “Democrats would not give that to us. They actually did not mark up one immigration bill. We took the act to the floor not once but twice to try to get it heard and Democrats blocked it both times.”

So what’s different now? Britt said the election pushed border security issues to the forefront of voters’ minds, which might be forcing the Democratic Party to listen.

“The border has become the most litigated issue over the past four years,” she told WORLD. “On Nov. 5, I think the American people spoke loudly that they want a secure border. Hopefully we’re seeing [the Senate] finally be responsive to the American people.”

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, echoed Britt’s assessment.

“The [Democrats] that are running for election are afraid,” Crapo told WORLD. “This bill is a really good idea, and it’s unfortunate the prior administration and prior leadership held it up.”

Riley’s 23rd birthday would have been on Friday. In a statement, her parents said they support Britt’s latest bill.

“Laken shared her love for Jesus with everyone she encountered,” Allyson and John Phillips said in a statement. “The Laken Riley Act has our full support because it would help save innocent lives and prevent more families from going through the kind of heartbreak we’ve experienced. … There is no greater gift that could be given to her and our country than to continue her legacy by saving lives through this bill.”