A supporter holds a sign with a photo of Laken Riley, who died at the hands an illegal immigrant earlier in the year, before a Donald Trump campaign rally March 9, 2024, in Rome, Ga. On Tuesday, the U.S. House, with the help of the entire Nevada House delegation, passed a bill that would target undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes for deportation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., takes questions at a news conference Tuesday with Reps. Steve Scalise, R-La., left, and Tom Emmer, R-Minn., on Capitol Hill in Washington. The House had just passed the Laken Riley Act, an opening salvo from a Republican majority that has vowed to deliver on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s promised crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Members of Nevada’s congressional delegation continued their support of GOP-led immigration legislation now on track to become the first bill to pass in the new session.
The Laken Riley Act, which the House passed Tuesday, would mandate detention of undocumented immigrants who are arrested for nonviolent crimes, like shoplifting. The legislation would also give state governments the ability to sue the federal government for certain immigration-related decisions, like releasing an undocumented individual from detention.
The bill passed the House on Tuesday on a 264-159 vote, with 216 Republicans and 48 Democrats supporting the measure.
While a majority of congressional Democrats were against the bill, all three of Nevada’s House Democrats, joined by Republican Mark Amodei, voted for passage.
It marked the second time in less than 10 months that the Nevada Democrats voted with the Republican majority on similar legislation.
Laken Riley, the bill’s namesake, was a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was killed by an undocumented immigrant, Jose Ibarra, while she was on a run in February 2024. Ibarra, who had previously avoided jail for two separate shoplifting incidents, was sentenced in November for Riley’s murder.
“The bottom line is that if an undocumented immigrant breaks the law, they should be deported,” said Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., in a statement. “Laken Riley may very well still be alive today had this bill been in law.”
Riley’s death became an integral component of the already divisive discussion surrounding immigration leading up to the 2024 election, with President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats being criticized for being soft on crime and illegal immigration.
“Yet another American life was stolen by a criminal alien set free by this administration,” then-candidate Donald Trump said about Riley at the Republican National Convention in July. “These were incredible people we’re talking about. These were incredible people who died.”
Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., agreed with Lee that the proposed bill would be a preventive effort.
“Laken Riley’s murder was a heartbreaking and senseless tragedy. Removing predators from our communities is about keeping our loved ones safe, plain and simple,”
Horsford said in a statement. “My focus is on protecting Nevadans from ever experiencing what Ms. Riley’s family has endured.”
Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat and the dean of the Nevada House delegation, said in a statement: “I supported the Laken Riley Act because it is commonsense anticrime legislation. While most migrants are in the U.S. in search of opportunity and are not here to commit crimes, there are exceptions to the rule and these bad actors must be held accountable.”
Much of the criticism Biden received came as the U.S. reached record-high levels of illegal border crossing arrests from Mexico in late 2023. In June 2024, Biden issued an executive order that barred those who crossed illegally from receiving asylum, moved more Department of Homeland Security agents to the southern border and referred an increased number of illegal immigrants for expedited removal from the U.S. The effort led to a significant decrease in the illegal crossings.
Under Biden, DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency achieved a 10-year high for deportations, according to an annual report published last month. In the 2024 fiscal year, the agency removed 271,484 noncitizens, which is an increase of 90.4% compared with 2023 and an increase by 276% compared with 2022.
As Trump is days away from taking office and preparing for what he pledges will be the largest mass deportation in the country’s history, many Democrats have promised to support immigrant communities who may be affected.
“I’m going to push back in whatever ways we need to against the Trump administration that hurt Nevada families — mass deportation, attacks on our Dreamers, attacks on our TPS holders,” Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said last week. “Dreamers” are those who were brought to the U.S. as children residing through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offers removal delays and work authorization to nearly a million people.
Nevertheless, Rosen’s office confirmed she would support the Laken Riley Act because she believes it would “keep Nevadans safe.”
“(Rosen) believes if someone commits a crime, they should be held accountable,” a spokesperson said.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., has not shared how she planned to vote as of Wednesday afternoon. Cortez Masto has been a vocal proponent for immigration reform, urging Biden to use his last days in office supporting DACA and Temporary Protected Status holders.
The Senate version of the bill was introduced by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and was the first and only legislation on the chamber’s calendar as of Wednesday afternoon.
A vote on the legislation by the Senate, where Republicans now hold the majority, is expected to take place Friday. However, the bill will need the support of at least eight members of the Democratic caucus, along with unanimity among the 52 Senate Republicans, to gain the 60-vote threshold needed to win passage in that chamber.
The House initially approved the bill in March 2024, though by a slimmer margin of 251-170. It then died in the Democratic-majority Senate. On Tuesday, the bill received 11 more Democratic votes in the House, and seven of them were from members who had previously been against it or had not voted.
At a news conference after Tuesday’s vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., did not directly respond to a question on whether the increased Democratic support signaled a divide in the Democratic Party.
“House Democrats look forward to working with the incoming administration and the Republican colleagues on securing the border in a commonsense manner and fixing our broken immigration system in a bipartisan and comprehensive way,” Jeffries said. He voted against the bill both times.
Alongside Jeffries, all other Democratic House leadership voted against it, and so did other prominent party members such as Reps. Nancy Pelosi of California and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Immigration advocates have been urging Congress to pull support from the bill, claiming it would separate families, harm workplace operations, deny people the right to defend themselves and place a target on longtime residents, including the hundreds of thousands in Nevada through DACA.
“This bill promotes an anti-immigrant agenda that ultimately harms Americans.
It mandates the detention of migrants — including DACA recipients, asylum seekers and others — based solely on accusations of theft, burglary or shoplifting,” Las Vegas immigration attorney Hardeep Sull said in a statement. “Not only will this bill strain our already overwhelmed immigration system, but it will also ensure that private prisons continue to profit at the expense of American taxpayers.”
Sull continued: “Today, the Nevada delegation has forgotten their duty to their constituents and the promises they made to their communities. Instead, they are advancing an agenda that will ultimately harm Nevadans.”
Titus, in her statement, called on her colleagues across the aisle to stop addressing immigration reform in a piecemeal manner. “I urge House Republicans to bring forward the bipartisan immigration reform bill I supported in the last Congress that strengthens border security while giving law-abiding immigrants a pathway to citizenship,” she said.
haajrah.gilani@gmgvegas.com / 702-990-8923 / @haajrahgilani