WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans gained more than enough Democratic support Thursday to advance a bill that would greatly expand immigration detention, following a presidential election in which border security was a main theme for President-elect Donald Trump.
In an 84-9 procedural vote, 32 Senate Democrats and one independent backed the bill, S. 5, sponsored by Alabama’s Katie Britt. With the 60-vote threshold met, the legislation now can advance for debate and a final vote.
The only Democrats who voted against the procedural motion were Sens. Tina Smith of Minnesota, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Andy Kim and Cory Booker of New Jersey, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, also opposed it.
Hours before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that he planned to vote to allow the bill to proceed because Democrats want a debate on the measure and an amendment process.
“This is not a vote on the bill itself,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday. “It’s a motion to proceed, a vote that says we should have a debate and should have amendments.”
The bill, named after 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, would expand mandatory detention requirements for immigrants — including some with legal status — charged with petty crimes like shoplifting.
María Teresa Kumar, the president and CEO of the civic engagement group Voto Latino, said in a statement that the bill “is a chilling first step toward widespread family separation while dismantling critical protections for due process.”
“The legislation’s broad detention requirements would impact even those legally permitted to enter the United States to seek asylum, subjecting them to immediate incarceration based on accusations of minor offenses such as theft, burglary, or shoplifting,” she said. “Such measures not only undermine due process but also disproportionately target migrants who are already fleeing violence and instability in search of safety.”
The legislation would also give broad legal standing for state attorneys general to challenge federal immigration law and bond decisions of immigration judges.
It would include not only immigrants in the country without documentation, but also those with a discretionary legal status such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Riley was out on a run when her roommates became concerned after she did not return home. Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old migrant from Venezuela, was charged and convicted of her murder last month. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ibarra allegedly entered the country illegally in 2022.
Ibarra was previously arrested on a shoplifting charge and released, so the bill Republicans have pushed for would require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to detain an immigrant charged or arrested with local theft, burglary or shoplifting.
“Her killer, who came to this country illegally, should have never been in the United States, and once he had been arrested for multiple crimes before committing the most heinous, unimaginable crime, he should have been detained by ICE immediately,” Britt said on the Senate floor.
Trump often spoke of Riley’s murder on the campaign trail and blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for her death.
The House passed its version of the bill, H.R. 29, on Tuesday, with 48 Democrats joining Republicans. The measure also passed the House on a bipartisan basis last Congress, with 37 Democrats voting with the GOP. It stalled in the Senate, where Democrats maintained a slim majority.
With a Republican-controlled trifecta in Washington after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, and only seven Senate Democrats needed to break the 60-vote threshold, the bill has a decent chance of becoming law once it gets to a final vote, drawing concern from immigration advocates.
“With just days before Trump’s inauguration and what we know will be an onslaught of more attacks against immigrants, there is no excuse for complicity in the hateful demonization of immigrant communities and violent expansion of the detention and deportation apparatus,” Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, the deputy director of federal advocacy of the largest youth immigrant advocacy group United WeDream Action, said in a statement.
Democrats, still reeling from the losses of the November election, have shifted toward the right on immigration.
The bill gained votes from senators from swing states that Trump carried, like Arizona freshman Ruben Gallego and Michigan freshman Elissa Slotkin.
“Michiganders have spoken loudly and clearly that they want action to secure our southern border,” Slotkin said in a statement.
She said that while the bill “isn’t perfect,” she’s hopeful for an amendment process.
Gallego and Slotkin both voted for the bill last Congress when they were members of the House.
Both Georgia Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff — who is up for reelection next year — and Raphael Warnock voted for the procedural motion.
“I’m voting to begin floor debate on the Laken Riley Act because I believe the people of Georgia want their lawmakers in Washington to address the issues in this legislation,” Warnock said in a statement before Thursday’s vote.
Michigan’s Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who is also up for reelection next year, also voted for the procedural motion.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Georgia Recorder.
