U.S. lawmakers passed the Laken Riley Act on Thursday despite the opposition of 170 Democrat Congressmen who oppose sanctions on criminal migrants and continue to disparage the memory of the murdered college student from Georgia.
The bill passed by 251-170 votes and will require the detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of illegal immigrants implicated in local theft or burglary charges. The bill was drafted following the brutal murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a nursing student at the University of Georgia, by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, who had prior criminal charges but was not previously detained by ICE.
The malefactor, identified as Jose Antonio Ibarra, had arrests and citations on his record in multiple states, including a child endangerment arrest in New York and a misdemeanor shoplifting citation in Georgia. Congressman Mike Collins, who advanced the bill, represents Georgia’s 10th Congressional District in Athens, the site of the fatal incident on February 22. He stated that the Laken Riley Act is America’s “wake-up call” to tackle what he sees as an “illegal crime wave” brought about by the ongoing border crisis.
The legislation also allows states to take legal action against the federal government if an immigration-related decision harms the state or its citizens.