First appeared on FOX: Senate Republicans are again urging Democrats to consider the Laken Riley Act, a bill that would require federal immigration authorities to arrest and detain people. Illegal immigration He was locked down for the second time this week and charged with local theft or burglary.
In a Thursday letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), 11 Senate Republicans, including every Republican on the Judiciary Committee, urged immediate consideration of the bill and asked Durbin to schedule amendments to the bipartisan bill.
“As you know, policies under the Biden Administration have resulted in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reporting more than 7.8 million encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border — a staggering number of encounters greater than the population of 37 states and larger than the population of any city in the United States except New York City,” the Republican senators, led by Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, wrote in the letter.
The letter came after Britt and Graham sought unanimous consent to pass the bill earlier this week, but Durbin opposed it, blocking the bill for the second time in recent months.
Illegal immigrant suspect in Laken Riley murder case charged with ‘peeking’ on UGA staff
Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama (left) and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (right) called for unanimous consent to pass the bill earlier this week, but Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois (center) opposed, again blocking consideration of the bill. (Getty Images)
“The Laken Riley Act is a bipartisan border bill that was supposed to be on the Senate floor this week. If this bill had become the law of the land, Laken Riley would still be alive today,” Britt, the lead co-sponsor of the Senate bill and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, told Fox News Digital.
“The United States Senate has a responsibility to prevent unimaginable tragedies like this from happening to more families across America,” she added. “It’s time for Senate Democrats to stop blocking this commonsense measure and put the safety and well-being of the American people first.”
Graham, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised Britt’s “determination” and voiced his support for the measure, telling Fox, “The man accused of killing Ms. Riley was allowed into the United States by Homeland Security due to a lack of detention space, a clear violation of parole laws. He then went on to commit multiple crimes before being charged with the murder of Ms. Riley.”
“It is shameful that Congress has not learned from this senseless murder and taken no corrective action,” he added. “The least Democrats can do is allow the committee to consider the Laken Riley Act. We must change the law so something like Ms. Riley’s never happens again.”
The name of this measure is Laken Riley, 22Jose Antonio Ibarra, a nursing student who was kidnapped and killed while jogging on the University of Georgia campus in February, was charged with murder. Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, had been arrested in New York before the murder but was not in ICE custody.
Prior to his murder indictment, Ibarra had been arrested on child endangerment charges in New York and, in October 2023, he and his brother, Diego Ibarra, were charged with misdemeanor shoplifting in Georgia, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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In their letter, the Republican lawmakers noted that Ybarra is “one of millions of aliens who have been granted parole by CBP under the leadership of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, who have engaged in unprecedented and increased abuse of their parole authority.”
“Under the Trump and Obama administrations, Customs and Border Protection on the southern border averaged fewer than 6,000 parole authorizations per year. Under President Biden, parole authorizations across the Department of Homeland Security have soared to more than 1.3 million per year,” the Republicans noted.
Lindsey Graham claims DHS told him Laken Riley’s murder suspect was illegally paroled
Republican lawmakers urged consideration of the bill, calling Riley’s killing a “senseless tragedy that could have been entirely prevented if the Biden Administration had properly enforced federal immigration law.”
The Laken-Riley Act U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE would be required to arrest illegal immigrants who commit crimes such as theft, robbery, larceny, and shoplifting, and to detain those who commit such crimes until they are deported from the United States, preventing them from violating the same laws or committing further crimes.
Additionally, the bill would guarantee states the right to bring civil lawsuits against federal officers who refuse to enforce immigration laws or who violate the laws.
The illegal immigrant from Venezuela, Jose Antonio Ibarra, who was charged with murder, had been arrested in New York before the murder but was not in ICE custody. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images)
“This bipartisan bill is a commonsense measure that will help avoid future tragedies due to failure to enforce and comply with our immigration laws. We look forward to the Judiciary Committee’s consideration,” Senate Republicans wrote to Durbin. “The Laken Riley Act is just one of many bills Senate Republicans have introduced to better protect the American people from the effects of the ongoing crisis on our southern border and to stop, rather than simply control, the flow of illegal immigration to our southern border and into the United States.”
“So far in Congress, the Judiciary Committee has failed to take meaningful action on any of these bills. We hope that will change in the near future, and we urge them to start with the Laken-Riley Act,” they added.
The Senate bill has 47 co-sponsors, including Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana, and was introduced in the Senate in March by Senators Britt and Ted Budd (R-Ga.), serving as a Senate companion to H.R. 7511, originally introduced in the House by Republican Representative Mike Collins of Georgia.
Collins’ bill passed the House in March by a vote of 251 to 170, with all 170 votes against being Democrats. 37 Democrats He joined the Republican Party in pushing the bill.
Collins called on the Senate to take up the bill immediately to “ensure justice for Mr. Laken and give ICE additional tools to detain and deport illegal immigrant criminals before they commit more serious crimes.”
Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) urged the Senate to immediately take up the Laken-Riley Act to “guarantee justice for Laken and give ICE additional tools to detain and deport criminal illegal immigrants before they commit more serious crimes.” (Bill Clark)
Collins said: Georgia 10th Congressional District The mayor of Athens, where the deadly attack took place on Feb. 22, said Riley’s killing was a “wake-up call” for the United States and that the measures were aimed at combating a “wave of illegal crime” stemming from the ongoing border crisis.
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In addition to Britt and Graham, the letter to Durbin was signed by Republican senators including Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Cornyn of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
Fox News Digital did not immediately receive a response from Durbin’s office as to whether he plans to bring the bill to the Judiciary Committee for consideration.
Fox News’ Greg Norman and Aubrey Spady contributed to this report.
