The House will vote on Tuesday at 13:00 Laken Riley’s Law As its first piece of legislation in the 119th Congress.
Re-introduced by Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican, the legislation makes Laken Riley’s death part of the Biden administration’s open border policies and gives attorneys general the power to sue the federal government if they show their states are being harmed by the nation’s failure to comply. immigration policies The measure allows states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for alleged harm to their citizens as a result of illegal immigration.
“If you polled the people and the voters, they would tell you that was at the top of the list, and we have a lot to do to fix that. It’s a total disaster, because of what happened in the last four years, and to fix it. and the Laken Riley Act is a big part of that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday.
The bill was named after Riley, a nursing student Jose Ibarra, who was murdered by an illegal immigrant While jogging on the University of Georgia campus. Ibarra was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
“The only thing President Biden did after Laken’s tragic death was to apologize for outlawing his killer,” Johnson added. “That’s terrible. We all know the real victim here was young Laken. Policy decisions have real consequences. This was deadly.”
In this March 9, 2024 file photo, a supporter holds a sign with a photo of Laken Riley before former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Rome.
Mike Stewart/AP, FILE
The House passed the bill in March by a vote of 251-170, with 37 Democrats voting in favor. The bill is expected to be re-approved with bipartisan support.
“When we introduced this bill in Congress last year, to my surprise and amazement, 170 House Democrats voted against that legislation,” Johnson said. “But as the Democrats struggle with their identity as a party post-election, we’ll see if they still hold to that open-borders policy and that mantra even if the American people completely reject it in November. We’ll see. It’s going to be a telling vote.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune held a procedural vote on the Laken Riley Act in the Senate, which could happen as soon as this week. It will be the first legislative action taken by the new Senate.
The bill will need 60 votes to pass the upper house. Even with a new 53-vote Republican majority, it might be hard to gauge the Democratic support needed to push it through.
So far, only one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, is sponsoring the bill, and Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Ted Budd, R-N.C. It is unclear whether the Democratic support needed to clear the Senate will be there.
The Senate, under Democratic leadership in the last session, never took up the act as a single bill. But Laken previously considered the Riley Act when Senate Republicans forced a vote as an amendment to a sweeping government funding package in March. The amendment was believed to be a government shutdown, and the changes in the bill would likely force a government shutdown.
At that time he did not vote for Democrats, even after that he got help of Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who lost re-election to Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy.
