The murder last year of nursing student Laken Riley, 22, in Georgia was undoubtedly a heinous crime. Her killer, Jose Ibarra, 26, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela, was found guilty in November and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
That her killer entered the country illegally, and was allowed to remain here while pursuing his immigration case after he was charged with shoplifting, became an understandable point of contention for lawmakers and many Americans. It led to a Congressional bill, the Laken Riley Act, which would rewrite a chunk of federal immigration law and has bipartisan support. It passed in the U.S. House last week and is expected to get a vote in the Senate this week.
Many Americans would find the bill sound on its face and likely agree with its most basic function: Detain and deport unauthorized immigrants who are arrested or charged with various theft-related crimes.
But a closer look at the legislation lays bare its problems.
For one, the bill would wrongly give a great deal of authority over immigration enforcement from the federal government and immigration courts to state attorneys general and federal judges.
Imagine when anti-immigrant conservatives, such as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, begin, as they no doubt will, to file numerous federal lawsuits over the government’s handling of immigration. Conservative states currently have an uphill battle to prove standing in some suits against the federal government involving immigration, for good reason: Supreme Court precedent long ago established that Congress has “plenary” power over immigration. And it should remain that way.
Here’s another troubling provision: State attorneys general could sue to stop the U.S. State Department from issuing visas to a country that won’t accept its citizens when the U.S. tries to deport them. That is an issue to be hammered out by leaders of nations, not state attorneys general.
“It could allow a single district court judge to set off a massive international incident with potentially sweeping ramification for the U.S. economy and for immigration writ large,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told reporters recently. “There is no reason why Congress should be authorizing state attorneys general to essentially be the people to decide who we sanction as a nation.”
If attorneys general, or any other American, has an issue with how Washington is handling immigration, they ought to take it up with their representatives in Congress — which for decades has failed to do the hard work of reforming our immigration system.
More questions than answers
The bill’s basic goal requires the detainment of undocumented immigrants who are arrested for, charged with or convicted of any burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting offense. Many Americans won’t quibble with that. But we have to ask:
Should a mother who steals food to feed her children be detained?
Should a child who takes a candy bar be placed in detention?
Should someone falsely accused of burglary or larceny end up in deportation proceedings?
We think not.
How about establishing a minimum dollar value for stolen goods to trigger detainment? If a hungry person steals a hamburger, is that worth the time for officers who also must investigate serious offenses?
The bill should also target people who are convicted of theft, not people who are merely arrested or charged. This would allow due process and might ease the load the law would place on an understaffed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Existing law allows ICE to assess cases individually “so the agency’s limited resources are used effectively to protect national security and public safety,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said Monday on the Senate floor. “This bill, as currently written, would eliminate ICE’s discretion to prioritize detention and deportation of dangerous individuals. Instead, it requires ICE to treat a child arrested for shoplifting candy the same as an adult convicted of child abuse.”
Federal law already exists to detain and deport people who commit serious crimes, especially violent ones. These people must remain ICE’s top priority.
The bill’s language is notable because Riley’s killer had been charged with shoplifting about $200 worth of goods — not a small sum — and failed to appear in court.
But by and large, immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. Research shows this. In October, the Migration Policy Institute published an explainer with data from Texas, the only state that tracks immigration status with arrests and convictions, to illustrate the disparity among U.S.-born citizens, documented immigrants and the undocumented.
The man who killed Laken Riley was the exception, not the norm.
There is a tide of anti-immigrant sentiment growing stronger in America. There are politicians who exploit this and paint undocumented immigrants as dangerous people. It’s worth noting that being “undocumented” was not considered a crime in the U.S. until 1929, when the U.S. passed a bill to limit immigration from Mexico.
Laken Riley’s bill aims to make America safer. Instead, it’s likely to bring more chaos to our already fractured immigration system.
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