First Trump-era deportation bill leaves Democratic Party divided
The law approved by Congress allows for the expulsion of immigrants accused of minor offenses without the requirement for trial
Donald Trump kicked off his second term as U.S. president on Monday with a flurry of executive orders aimed at sweeping away the era of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and making a sharp U-turn on immigration, energy, and diversity policy. Although Trump pushed the limits of executive authority, for many of his priorities, presidential decrees are not enough; they need legal backing. The Republican-majority Congress has served him up on a platter the first law of the new legislature, which allows the president to put the focus on one of those priorities: deportations. The passage of the bill has left the Democratic Party divided on the issue.
The Senate and House on Wednesday afternoon passed the Laken Riley Act, named in honor of a Georgia nursing student who was killed last year by a Venezuelan immigrant who had previously been arrested and released on a misdemeanor charge. The new law, which fits neatly into Trump’s policy of mass deportations, allows for the detention and removal of undocumented immigrants who are charged with crimes, even if they have not yet been tried or convicted.
The final vote took place on Wednesday in the House of Representatives and the bill was supported as a bloc by Republican congressmen and 46 Democrats. The overall result of the vote, with 263 in favor and 156 against, confirms the Democratic shift on the issue. The bill had already passed the lower House last year, but stalled in the Senate, which was controlled by Joe Biden’s party at the time. Now, Democratic senators have helped to unblock its fast-track passage in the upper chamber as well.
The new rule requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain unauthorized immigrants who are charged with, or have been arrested for or convicted of theft, robbery and nonviolent assault and mandates that they be held in custody until deported. The bill was expanded in the Senate to also include those accused of assaulting a police officer or crimes that result in injury or death. Under the previous law, a conviction for two misdemeanors or one felony was required for deportation. The text of the new rule also allows states to sue the federal government if they can prove damages caused by immigrants who enter the country illegally.
What the law does not include is new funding to bolster ICE resources. The Department of Homeland Security has estimated that implementing the new legislation would cost $26.9 billion in the first year, including an increase of 110,000 ICE detention beds. Trump wants new funding for immigration as part of another law that would also serve to extend his previous term’s tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year. Addressing fresh spending and lower revenues without increasing the already runaway government deficit will require cuts in other areas.
Progressive critics
Some Democrats have criticized the law for that lack of funding, but others have done so as a matter of principle, especially among the party’s progressive wing. “It is shameful that the first bill of the new Congress will put a target on the back of millions of our neighbors and increase the militarization of our neighborhoods,” Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said in a statement. “This bill is a blatant violation of due process and will lead to the mandatory detention and deportation of people who are merely accused of a crime — without even being convicted. It will separate families and lead to increased racial profiling. It will empower Trump even further to unleash mass deportation on our communities. It’s a shame that my colleagues are giving into racist fearmongering at the first opportunity to pass legislation to scapegoat immigrants and fuel hate in our communities,” she added.
“I want the American people to know with eyes wide open, what is inside this bill because we stand here just two days after President Trump gave unconditional pardons to violent criminals who attacked our nation’s capital on January 6, and these are the people who want you to believe, who want us to believe, that they’re trying to quote unquote ‘keep criminals off the streets,’ when they are opening the floodgates,” New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said for her part during the House debate. “In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and signed and sent out for deportation without a day in court, without a moment to assert their right and without a moment to assert the privilege of innocent until proven guilty,” she continued.
A significant group of members of the Democratic Party, especially from constituencies where they were elected with a slim majority, have seen how Trump’s tough-on-illegal-immigration message has caught on with the electorate and decided to support the law. Some even co-sponsored it, such as the senators for Arizona, Rubén Gallego, and Pennsylvania, John Fetterman.
Trump has declared an emergency on the border with Mexico and a good part of his first decrees have been aimed at combating irregular immigration. The president has decided to cancel asylum and refugee requests, send troops to the border, and reinforce physical barriers and other exceptional measures, despite the fact that the flow of immigrants has fallen in recent months to levels below those recorded at the end of his first term. The demonization of immigrants and xenophobic discourse contributed significantly to his election victory, just as it did in 2016.
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