The Laken Riley Act Is Terrible Legislation
By naming it after a murder victim, Republicans are using the emotion of her death to pass dangerous targeted legislation
The Laken Riley Act, a piece of legislation using emotional messaging to enact laws that would disproportionately target Latinos, lead to the mass incarceration of noncitizens, legal or not, and grant state Attorneys General overreaching authority thinning the line between the separation powers. That it’s being used to quell the misinformation about “migrant crime” rather than Democrats taking the time to correct the record reeks of the same environment that led to the passage of the disastrous 1994 Crime Bill.
We have discussed, ad nauseam, how immigrants commit far fewer crimes than U.S.-born citizens over the last several years. Thanks to the nature of how far-right misinformation is promoted through various media platforms, it inevitably gets treated as true and lawmakers make little effort to challenge that thought. There’s no better example of that than lawmakers showing how little they know about a bill they promote in the media and on social media.
This leaves us at a crossroads wondering if they just haven’t read the bill or are intentionally lying about it, therefore, becoming purveyors of misinformation. What it does show is how quickly Democrats are turning on their base because they still think keeping humanity at the forefront is why they lost the recent elections. What they don’t realize is that they lost because they abandoned many of their core ideas to appease conservative nonsense.
President Biden won a contentious election saying things like trans rights are human rights, he would protect the right to seek asylum, and he would seek accountability in policing and reform the criminal justice system. In other words, by embracing progressive ideas. However, in less than a year, police accountability went out the window as he stated, “We are going to re-fund the police,” — as if they were ever defunded at scale. He implemented asylum restrictions twice denying asylum seekers due process. The party stopped saying anything about trans rights.
The last four years Democrats markedly continued drifting to the right to appease conservatives rather than fight back with facts and truth. There is no better example of this than the Bipartisan Border Bill. The bill was riddled with MAGA lawmakers and President-elect Donald Trump’s policy ideas – the ability to close the border at will, more border wall, an explosion in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) funding, asylum limits, and increased mass incarceration.
“The proposed bill would exclude people fleeing violence and persecution from seeking asylum and instead doubles down on failed anti-immigrant policies that encourage irregular immigration. It does not provide relief for Dreamers, farmworkers, or other longtime American residents, nor take steps to attract and retain the world’s brightest young minds. It would not completely relieve problems at the border because it does not address the root causes of regional migration. Any discussion on immigration reform must include these common sense, popular policies that would make meaningful changes to our immigration system.” - Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), May 2024.
It wasn’t just that Trump didn’t want Biden to get a win, he also wanted credit for the bill which will now likely be even more extreme.
Enter, the Laken Riley Act.
The bill is being touted as one that “cracks down on illegal immigration” but it does not. It changes federal law to allow for the detention and deportation of “non-U.S. nationals” who have been “arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.” Notice the bill does not say “charged” or “convicted,” it says “arrested”. This means should an immigrant, with a legal case pending or not, be picked up for a simple shoplifting charge, they would be detained under an amended version of the Immigration Nationality Act - 8 U.S.C. 1226(c).
This doesn’t only apply to undocumented immigrants. It also ensnares people who legally live and work in the U.S. That means the law would also apply to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” who are legally allowed to live and work in the U.S. Finally, it would also apply to refugees who entered the country between points of entry but have since been granted asylum or temporary protected status (TPS) or have cases pending.
The bill would also grant state attorneys general enforcement authority by amending Section 235(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act—8 U.S.C. 1225(b). This provision would allow them to effectively take control of immigration enforcement from the federal executive branch and ban the issuance of visas to migrants from countries like India, Venezuela, Haiti, or Cuba.
“The attorney general of a State, or other authorized State officer, alleging a violation of the detention and removal requirements under paragraphs (1) or (2) that harms such State or its residents shall have standing to bring an action against the Secretary of Homeland Security on behalf of such State or the residents of such State in an appropriate district court of the United States to obtain appropriate injunctive relief. The court shall advance on the docket and expedite the disposition of a civil action filed under this paragraph to the greatest extent practicable. For purposes of this paragraph, a State or its residents shall be considered to have been harmed if the State or its residents experience harm, including financial harm in excess of $100.”
Any lawmaker who disputes what is in the text of the bill is either purposely lying or hasn’t read it and has bought into, or is attempting to use, the emotion of Laken Riley’s death as a selling point. The truth is, her name shouldn’t be on this bill. It’s not only a disservice to all immigrants, particularly Latinos who it clearly targets, but to Laken Riley and her family as well.
Meanwhile, we’re facing yet another 1994 Crime Bill that will only boost the profits of the private prison industrial complex which benefits greatly from unpaid and low-paid labor through mass incarceration contracts that guarantee their beds remain full. In other words, the bill subsidizes an industry created by the only requirement in the Constitution that justifies slavery:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." – The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
The words “duly convicted” never stopped private prisons, or in this case, private immigration detention facilities, from paying yet-to-be-convicted detainees as little as $1 per day for their labor. These indefinite detentions of migrants are often referred to as labor trafficking and we appear to be headed toward a new dawn in this as an industry.
Lawmakers should be ashamed of voting in favor of this legislation, especially Democrats who are supposed to be fighting back against such ideas.
Read The Laken Riley Act
I’m a freelance journalist. Find my work at Latino Rebels, Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, and more. I’m also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support my work, become a paid subscriber or donate via Venmo, PayPal, or CashApp.
Arturo, This is one of the most timely and important issues on the docket right now, and I understand there are many! Thank you for taking the time to spell out the underlying causes and conditions that make this Act "terrible legislation" and thank you for making it easy for us to review the Act for ourselves. Critical Thinking is so essential for a healthy democracy
It's just a repeat of the broken window policy of the 90's indeed. I wonder how many times they will repackage the same idea (imprisonment for making money of almost free labor) until people start catching up onto it ... not sure why these people get re-elected seriously. The first thing I'll do in the first election I'll be voting for in the United States is checking my representativ3's voting record, ask for reasons for their vote, and hold them accountable to that (vote them out).