WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has passed legislation named for a murdered Georgia nursing student that would give federal immigration agencies broad authority to detain undocumented immigrants accused of a crime.
The Laken Riley Act was approved on the Senate floor Monday with the help of 12 Democrats, including Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. The final tally was 64-35.
Warnock said after the vote that he decided to support it out of concern for the pain experienced by the family of Riley, who was killed last year by a Venezuelan man who was living in the country without legal permission and had faced prior charges of shoplifting.
“She should be alive today, and I thought it was important to act,” he said. “This is not the bill I would have written. I think I was hoping for a path for a more bipartisan bill, but I’ll keep working from here.”
Ossoff, who is up for reelection next year, had said all along that he backed the legislation. His posture didn’t change even after the Senate approved amendments adding to the list of criminal charges that would lead to deportation proceedings.
The original language, which the House has already approved, allowed law enforcement agencies to detain and begin deportation procedures for migrants accused of nonviolent crimes like burglary and theft. The first amendment added assault on law enforcement officers to the list of eligible offenses, and a second approved Monday broadened the measure further to include “any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person.”
The amended bill will now be sent back to the House. It is likely the House will approve the bill and send it President Donald Trump later this week, making it the first to be signed into law during his second term.
The Senate approved the bill as Donald Trump signed executive orders in front of a crowd of supporters at an inaugural rally at the Capital One Arena.
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued a statement criticizing the Senate’s vote.
She noted that the vote coincided with the national holiday honoring the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and said that the legislation “stands in stark contrast to Dr. King’s dream of justice, equality, and freedom from oppression for all people, including immigrants.”
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