Laken Riley Act Passed the Senate with Help from 12 Democrats

Two weeks ago the Laken Riley Act passed in the House. Yesterday a similar bill passed in the Senate with help from 12 Democrats. This will likely become the first bill sent to President Trump’s desk for a signature once it heads back to the House for final approval.

The Senate passed the Laken Riley Act on Monday, with 12 Democrats joining all Republicans to vote for the amended immigration bill.

The measure…now goes to the House, which passed a similar but not identical bill earlier this month. The final Senate tally was 64-35.

The House is expected to take up the measure later this week, likely Wednesday or Thursday. It would then land on President Donald Trump’s desk, delivering him an early if modest bipartisan win on his signature campaign issue of illegal immigration.

Here’s the list of Senate Democrats who voted for the bill.

The Democrats who voted yes were Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Warner of Virginia.

Democrats including Fetterman wanted some protection for Dreamers in the bill but it didn’t happen. The support of Sens. Ossoff and Warnock might be surprising if not for the fact that they are both from Georgia, where Laken Riley was killed. Ruben Gallego, the new Senator from Arizona, defended his vote and suggested he might side with Republicans in future votes on this issue.

In an interview, Gallego said it could be just the first of many votes he takes with Republicans on immigration and border issues — the reason he believes Democrats lost so broadly in 2024.

“I’m bringing the perspective of working class Latinos from Arizona,” he said. “And that perspective, I think, has been missing.”…

“There has been this misunderstanding about where Latinos are when it comes to border and border security,” he said. “I’m here to bring some more real truth about what people are thinking … and so people here and senators here aren’t necessarily reliant on these immigration groups that are, I think, a lot of times, largely out of touch with where your average Latino is.”

The Senate bill is nearly identical to the House bill except for two amendments which make it stronger.

The measure, originally introduced in the Senate by Katie Britt, R-Ala., requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take custody of and detain undocumented immigrants who are charged, arrested or convicted for committing acts of “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.”

The Senate approved two amendments before final passage: one from John Cornyn, R-Texas, that adds assault of a law enforcement officer to the offenses that trigger detention, and another from Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, that expands that to acts causing death or bodily harm.

It would also empower state attorneys general to sue the federal government over allegations of failing to enforce immigration laws “if the State or its residents experience harm, including financial harm in excess of $100,” according to the text.

Progressives have been campaigning against this bill for weeks, arguing that Democrats needed to fight back and force Republicans to amend it. Here’s a sample from Slate:

…it is frankly difficult to see how tweaks around the edges could fix the foundational flaws of this legislation. Democrats like Gallego and Sen. John Fetterman seem to think Trump’s victory reflects nationwide hostility toward unauthorized immigration that must be channeled into legislative action. This act, though, exploits the Democratic Party’s evident fear of appearing soft on border policy to sneak through major new restrictions on legal immigration and law-abiding immigrants. That is the bill’s core purpose; it cannot be wished or amended away. If Democrats cannot recover their nerve and stand up to this extremism, they will be complicit in the devastating consequences of its passage.

The Democrats did not recover their nerve and did not stand up to the Laken Riley Act. It passed and could be to the president’s desk in the next few days.