Washington, Jan 29 (EFE).- United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law the Laken Riley Act, requiring immigration authorities to detain undocumented migrants charged with theft or other misdemeanors.
Trump signed his first law since returning to power in the East Room of the White House before about 100 guests, including family of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student killed by an undocumented migrant in February 2024 whose death boosted the legislation.
“America will never forget Laken Hope Riley,” stated Trump, who said that José Ibarra, the undocumented migrant from Venezuela who killed her, should have been deported before her death.
Ibarra had been arrested for misdemeanor shoplifting but was allowed to remain in the country while his migration case was pending. He was convicted of Riley’s murder in late 2024 and is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Instead of being deported, as he should have been, he was released into the US. As were millions of other people, many of them very dangerous people, and you see what we’re doing. We’re getting them the hell out of here,” Trump said.
Riley’s death fuelled the migration debate in the run-up to the November 2024 elections, in which Democratic candidate and then Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump, who had promised the largest deportations in the country’s history.
On Jan. 22, the initiative was approved by the Republican-majority House of Representatives with almost unanimous (except for one member who did not vote) and the of 46 Democratic of Congress.
The bill was also ed by the Republican-majority Senate with the of 12 Democratic senators, despite opposition from migrant rights activists traditionally allied with the Democratic Party.
These groups denounced the measure as too radical, saying it could lead to massive raids on people accused of petty crimes such as shoplifting.
Civil rights and migrant organizations also warned that the law would remove due process for those accused of non-violent crimes.
The new law will empower state general attorneys to intervene in federal migration policy decisions. Among the new powers, they will be able to force the State Department to deny visas to citizens of countries that do not accept deportations from the US.
According to a 2024 Immigration and Costums Enforcement memo obtained by the news outlet Politico, the government would have to spend more than 3 billion dollars extra to implement the law as it would have to increase the capacity of migrant detention centers to more than 60,000 beds.
Trump put migration at the center of his campaign and has urged the relevant government agencies to set a minimum daily apprehension quota per agent and to increase the number of apprehensions from 1,200 to 1,500 per day.
The head of state said that ing the bill is only the beginning. On Monday, he told a conference of Republican lawmakersin Florida about the potential for additional legislation that will help them crack down on “criminal aliens” and fully restore the rule of law in the country. EFE
mgr-bpm/dgp/ics
