The Republican-controlled House last week passed legislation named in honor of the Georgia nursing student murdered by an illegal alien that would require any illegal arrested for burglary or theft to be detained by ICE, The Hill reported.
The Laken Riley Act, introduced by Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins, passed the House in a 251-170 vote last Thursday, with 37 Democrats supporting the measure.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said the day before the vote that innocent Americans like Laken Riley have been “victimized” by the illegal aliens released into the country under President Biden’s immigration policies.
New York Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler who opposed the measure, accused Republicans of exploiting Laken Riley’s death for a “partisan, political stunt.” He argued that Republicans threw together the bill from existing legislation to “target and scapegoat immigrants” as a way to score “cheap political points in an election year.”
The Laken Riley Act passed just hours before President Biden delivered his State of the Union Address where Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shamed the president into mentioning, or attempting to mention, Riley’s name. Unfortunately, the president referred to the slain nurse as “Lincoln Riley.”
Democrats, however, were more upset about the president referring to Riley’s killer as an “illegal” than they were about her murder.
Rep. Collins said his guest for the president’s address would be an empty chair in honor of Riley and the other US citizens who have been killed by illegal aliens.
ICE confirmed in late February that Jose Ibarra, the 26-year-old Venezuelan national who murdered Riley, had been arrested in New York City last fall but was released before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could issue a detainer against him.
Following last Thursday’s vote, Rep. Collins urged the US Senate to take up the Laken Riley Act “immediately,” both to “ensure justice” for Riley and provide additional tools to ICE to detain criminal illegals “before they commit more serious crimes.”