Graphic by Gabriela Pawlikowska, Graphic Designer
By Jonah Marshall, Staff Writer
President Donald J. Trump signed his first bill last week, The Laken Riley Act. The bill was signed into law on January 29th, 2025 after it got bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.
Who is Laken Riley?
The act was named in honor of the 22-year old Georgia nursing student who was murdered while jogging at Augusta University by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant named José Antonio Ibarra. Ibarra was later found guilty of 10 violent felony counts and given life in prision without the possibility of parole. He was not deported.
The act details its federal detention system. According to the Department of Homeland Security, immigration officers have the authority to detain undocumented immigrants who are accused of theft, burglary, assaulting a law enforcement officer, and any crime that causes death or serious bodily injury. The act also allows deportations to take place without having a trial where the person in question is found guilty.
The Attorney General would now have the power to sue the federal government if they release undocumented immigrants convicted of those crimes who act again, allowing Visa restrictions to countries who do not accept deportees. Some people will not be allowed to immigrate to the US legally by applying for visas.
Why is this bill a “Landmark Law”?
While it is extremely crucial to fix our immigration system and important to honor those who have been impacted by it, the bill could possibly do more harm than good. The act allows undocumented immigrants to be deported even if they have not been found guilty of a crime. This is a violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the right to due process.
This causes extreme concerns of both documented and undocumented immigrants. The refusal of immigration visas to those in the legal process based on the acceptance of other immigrants being deported to another country as a punishment can be deemed unconstitutional.
The Department of Homeland Security has released a statement to lawmakers stating that the bill could lead to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) having to release immigrants out of custody who may be deemed high risk. Connecticut Democratic Senator, Chris Murphy, made a statement regarding this bill, “It will make our immigration system more chaotic and our country less safe. Under this bill, people charged with serious crimes will be released because detention centers will be forced to detain a child who stole a pack of gum from a gas station instead.”
The first year cost of this bill will be roughly $26 billion. Each deportation of a non-citizen out of the United States will cost around $13,000. A Brookings article goes further in depth, stating that there has been a dramatic increase from 200,000 to 400,000 deportations in the last few decades with the pandemic being the beginning to the spike of removals from the US.
According to NPR, the agency will need to acquire 110,000 beds, 10,000 ICE agents, and 7,000 extra attorneys to represent those in court. The current measure that has been signed by President Trump does not account for any economic plans that will also take a hit due to this by having major gaps in the workforce. It is abundantly clear that undocumented immigrants take these low-income and potentially dangerous jobs more frequently than both U.S. and documented immigrant workers.
According to the U.S Department of Labor, about 6% of unauthorized immigrants work as housekeepers, construction laborers, or cooks, compared to about 2% of authorized immigrant workers and 1% of U.S.-born workers.
While this immigration bill has passed last week, one needs to be passed that still remains constitutional to all but should also detail necessities such as funding for border officers, a faster track to the path to legal citizenship, and mandatory training for ICE officers on how to handle domestic situations or situations that could turn violent due to conflicts during arrests to decrease fatalities that could occur due to escalations to avoid any other turmoil and destruction in these communities.
