This is excellent news
Laken Riley Act passes Senate on bipartisan vote
The Senate passed the Laken Riley Act on Monday, with 12 Democrats joining all Republicans to vote for the amended immigration bill.
The measure, which would mandate the detention of more undocumented immigrants charged with crimes, now goes to the House, which passed a similar but not identical bill earlier this month. The final Senate tally was 64-35.
The House is expected to take up the measure later this week, likely Wednesday or Thursday. It would then land on President Donald Trump’s desk, delivering him an early if modest bipartisan win on his signature campaign issue of illegal immigration.
The Democratic senators who backed it were Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Jon Ossoff (Ga.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Raphael Warnock (Ga.).
There’s zero chance it doesn’t re-pass the House, so, Trump should be signing it by Saturday at the latest.
Protecting illegal aliens. It's what @thedemocrats do best.
— Doug Ross (@directorblue) January 21, 2025
Yeah, the rest of them are not taking this well
(The Hill) The Laken Riley Act is roiling the Senate Democratic Conference, as senators believe their party bungled immigration and border security in 2024 but aren’t happy about the swift passage of a bill they view as terrible policy. Democratic critics of the bill believe the rush to pass it is a political overreaction from Democratic colleagues scrambling to protect themselves on those issues.
Some Democratic senators are venting frustration about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) giving a green light to politically vulnerable colleagues to vote to advance the bill without getting an ironclad guarantee that Democrats would have more opportunity to amend the legislation.
So most voted because they are vulnerable, not because it’s a good idea to protect American citizens from illegal alien criminals. Though, from what Fetterman has said, he might have truly wanted to vote for the bill.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who blasted the bill as bad policy, said the lack of opportunity to modify the legislation on the floor — aside from three amendments — represents a broader failure of the entire Senate to meaningfully debate immigration policy.
“I think that this bill reflects the way the Senate has broken down in some respects in the fact that we’re not able to have votes on amendments that would have improved the legislation. It’s really problematic,” he said.
It’s bad policy to protect Americans from all the illegals and fake asylum seekers? Only in Liberal World.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said he was concerned with how the bill was handled.
“We should use the committee process where there’s an opportunity to deliberate and discuss,” he said.
They had the opportunity, but, what’s to discuss? It’s a simple bill, and, they had the chance to debate in committee last year when it was passed in the House and sent to the Democrat run Senate. They chose not to. And they will do anything to protect illegal alien criminals.
