US House passes immigrant detention bill in first legislative win for Trump

The House on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that requires the detainment of unauthorised immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes, marking the first legislation that President Donald Trump can sign as Congress, with some bipartisan support, swiftly moved in line with his plans to crackdown on illegal immigration.

Passage of the Laken Riley Act, which was named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan man, shows just how sharply the political debate over immigration has shifted to the right following Trump’s election victory. Immigration policy has often been one of the most entrenched issues in Congress, but a crucial faction of 46 politically vulnerable Democrats joined with Republicans to lift the strict proposal to passage on a 263-156 vote tally.

“For decades, it has been almost impossible for our government to agree on solutions for the problems at our border and within our country,” said Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican. She called the legislation “perhaps the most significant immigration enforcement bill” to be passed by Congress in nearly three decades.

Still, the bill would require a massive ramp-up in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s capabilities, but does not include any new funding.

Meanwhile, the new president has launched a slew of executive orders intended to seal off the border of Mexico to immigration and ultimately deport millions of immigrants without permanent legal status in the US On Wednesday, Trump also cancelled refugee resettlement and his administration has signalled intentions to prosecute local law enforcement officials who do not enforce his new immigration policies.

Republican congressional leaders have made it clear they intend to follow suit, though their toughest challenge will be finding a way to approve the funding to actually implement Trump’s hard-line plans.

“What he’s doing is kickstarting what will ultimately be our legislative agenda,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

House Republicans initially passed the legislation last year with support from 37 Democrats in a move that was intended to deliver a political rebuke to then-President Joe Biden’s handling of the southern border. It then languished in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

This year, Republicans, now with control of both congressional chambers, have made it their top priority. When it came before the Senate, 12 Democrats voted in favour of passage, and when the House voted on a version of the bill earlier this month, 48 Democrats supported it.

The vast majority of US adults favour deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, according to a recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. However, only about 37% of US adults are in favour of deporting immigrants in the US illegally who have not been convicted of a crime.

“While the bill is not perfect, it sends a clear message that we think that criminals should be deported,” said Representative Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat who has called on his party to support tougher immigration enforcement.

Under the legislation, federal authorities would be required to detain any migrant arrested or charged with crimes like shoplifting. The scope of the proposal was widened in the Senate to also include those accused of assaulting a police officer or crimes that injure or kill someone.

The bill also gives legal standing to state attorneys general to sue the federal government for harm caused by federal immigration decisions. That gives states new power in setting immigration policy when they have already been trying to push back against presidential decisions under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Democrats unsuccessfully pushed to have that provision stripped from the bill in the Senate, saying it would inject even more uncertainty and partisanship into immigration policy.

Ultimately, even the Trump administration is likely to struggle to implement the new requirements unless Congress follows up later this year with funding. Republicans are currently strategising how to push their priorities through Congress through a party-line process known as budget reconciliation. They have put the cost of funding Trump’s border and deportation priorities at roughly USD 100 billion.

Trump has “laid out the largest domestic logistical undertaking of our lifetimes -- that being the deportation of the vast majority of illegal aliens present in the United States,” Ken Cuccinelli, who directed US Citizenship and Immigration Services during Trump’s first presidency, told a Senate panel recently.

Cuccinelli said it would require a surge of immigration judges, prosecutors and other staff, but Trump has also paved the way to use military troops, bases and other resources to carry out the mass deportations.

The Department of Homeland Security has estimated the Laken Riley Act would cost USD 26.9 billion in the first year to implement, including an increase of 110,000 ICE detention beds.

Most Democrats criticised the lack of funding in the bill as proof that it is a piecemeal approach that would do little to fix problems in the immigration system, but saddle federal authorities with new requirements.

“The bill’s authors claimed it’s going to result in the arrest and detention of serious criminals, but it will not do that because it’s a totally unfunded mandate,” said Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

Others raised concerns that the bill would strip due process rights for migrants, including minors or recipients of the Deferred Action for Unaccompanied Arrivals program. Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said that federal authorities would now be forced to prioritise the detention of migrants arrested for low-level crimes like shoplifting, rather than those who commit violent felonies.

On the whole, there is no evidence that immigrants are more prone to violent crime. Several studies have found immigrants commit lower rates of crime than those born in the U.S. Groups that advocate for restrictive immigration policies dispute or dismiss those findings.

But Republicans pointed to the bill’s namesake, Laken Riley, and how she was killed by a Venezuelan migrant who had previously been arrested by local authorities but released as he pursued his immigration case.

“If this act had been the law of the land, he never would have had the opportunity to kill her,” said Representative Mike Collins, R-Ga.