Trump signs the Laken Riley Act into law as his first piece of legislation
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an immigration detention measure into law, marking his first legislative win days after he took office as the Republican-led Congress angles to execute his agenda.
The House gave its final approval of the bill in a 263-156 vote Wednesday, with 46 Democrats joining all Republicans in favor. The measure also passed the Senate on Monday in a 64-35 vote, with 12 Democrats breaking with their party to back it.
Trump opened his remarks with a victory lap, crediting his immigration agenda for his victory in the election and thanking the Republican and Democratic lawmakers who brought the bill to his desk.
“This is something that has brought Democrats and Republicans together. That’s not easy to do,” Trump said in remarks in the East Wing of the White House. “Laken did it. America will never ever forget Laken Hope Riley.”
The president praised Riley as “a light of warmth and kindness,” thanking her parents and sister who attended the bill signing.
The legislation is named for Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who went out for a run in February 2024 and was killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan national in the U.S. illegally. Ibarra was found guilty in November and sentenced to life without parole.
The Laken Riley Act, named after the Georgia nursing student murdered last year, would require federal authorities to detain migrants accused of theft and violent crimes.
“To have a bill of such importance named after her is a great, a great tribute,” Trump said. “This new form of crime, criminal, illegal aliens, it’s — it’s massive, the numbers are massive and you add that to the crime we already had.”
The swift passage of the legislation and Trump’s signing nine days after taking office adds to the potent symbolism for conservatives. To critics, the measure has taken advantage of a tragedy and could lead to chaos and cruelty while doing little to fight crime or overhaul the immigration system.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., a cosponsor, had said he planned to attend the signing ceremony.
“I believe a secure border creates a more secure nation and it’s just common sense,” he said in a statement, adding that he was elected “to work with both sides of the aisle.”
Federal officials would have to detain any immigrant arrested or charged with crimes such as theft or assaulting a police officer, or offenses that injure or kill someone. State attorneys general could sue the U.S. government for harm caused by federal immigration decisions — potentially allowing the leaders of conservative states to help dictate immigration policy set by Washington.
Jose Antonio Ibarra was convicted on Wednesday in a case that became focal to the immigration debate ahead of the presidential election.
Ibarra had been arrested for illegal entry in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas, and released to pursue his case in immigration court. Federal officials say he was arrested by New York police in August 2023 for child endangerment and released. Police say he was also suspected of theft in Georgia in October 2023 — all of which occurred before Riley’s killing.
After the House passed the bill, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said it was “the right thing to do.”
Some Democrats have questioned whether it is constitutional. Immigrant advocates are bracing for mass detentions that they say will mean costly construction of immigration lockup facilities to house the people arrested.
“They don’t just get to celebrate. They get to use this for their mass deportation agenda,” Naureen Shah, deputy director of government affairs in the equality division of the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the act’s supporters.
The ACLU says the act can allow people to be “mandatorily locked up — potentially for years — because at some point in their lives, perhaps decades ago, they were accused of nonviolent offenses.”
Hannah Flamm, interim senior director of policy at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the measure violates immigrants’ basic rights by allowing for detaining people who have not been charged with wrongdoing — and not even convicted. Still, she said, “The latent fear from the election cycle of looking soft on crime snowballed into aiding and abetting Trump’s total conflation of immigration with crime.”
Flamm said it is likely to be challenged in court. But she also predicted that a need to pay for more immigration detention centers will give advocates a chance to challenge how federal funds are appropriated to cover those costs.
“I think it is pivotal to understand: This bill, framed as connected to a tragic death, is pretext to fortify a mass deportation system,” Flamm said.
The signing follows a flurry of first-week executive orders by Trump that are designed to better seal off the U.S.-Mexico border and eventually move to deport millions of immigrants without permanent U.S. legal status. The new administration has also canceled refugee resettlement and says it may attempt to prosecute local law enforcement officials who do not enforce his new immigration policies.
“We’re tracking down the illegal alien criminals and we’re detaining them and we’re throwing them the hell out of our country,” Trump said. “We have no apologies, and we’re moving forward very fast.”