By Richard Cowan and Gabriella Borter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Wednesday delivered Republican President Donald Trump legislation requiring the detention of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally who are accused of theft, with a significant number of Democrats voting in favor.
The Republican-majority House of Representatives, by a vote of 263-156, passed and sent to Trump for signing into law the Laken Riley Act. It is expected to be the first of several steps by Republicans this year to tighten border security and further slow the flow of migrants into the United States.
The House passed the bill with 46 Democrats joining 217 Republicans. The Senate earlier this week did so with the help of 12 out of 47 Democrats and independents who caucus with them. Without those one-dozen votes the measure would have died in Congress for now.
The bill is named after a college student murdered in the state of Georgia by a man from Venezuela who was living in the U.S. illegally and who had a prior record of shoplifting. He is now serving a life sentence in prison.
The bill would require the detention of immigrants suspected of theft or other crimes such as shoplifting even if they have not been charged with any crimes.
Trump won November’s presidential election after making immigration a top issue during his campaign, emboldening Republicans to pursue his get-tough-on-immigrants agenda.
Democrats who supported the bill said they were reflecting their constituents’ concerns about immigration.
“The American people want us to do something about the border and I think we’d be hard-pressed to not say that we have to deport criminals,” Representative Tom Suozzi, a moderate Democrat who voted for the bill, told Reuters.
Some more-liberal Democrats have accused the party of going soft on immigration in the wake of the 2024 election, when Republicans took majority control of the Senate and maintain a very slim House majority.
Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, one of the caucus’s most liberal members, on Wednesday called it “disheartening” that so many Democrats supported the bill.
House Democratic Caucus head Pete Aguilar said there has been no backsliding on his party’s support for immigration reforms, noting it was Republicans who have repeatedly killed legislation that was strong on border security and aimed to modernize U.S. immigration law.
“Democrats have not changed on this issue,” Aguilar said in response to a question by Reuters. “We will continue to talk about Dreamers and farm workers” and those immigrants who have a legal status in the United States, he added. Dreamers refers to immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children.
Nearly a year ago, a similar bill passed the House with the support of 37 Democrats, but went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
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