Rethinking the Laken Riley Act
I was a bit too hasty to sing the Laken Riley Act's praises.
On January 8, I published a column advocating for Congress to pass the Laken Riley Act. Besides my consistent misspelling of Laken Riley’s first name (and thus the act’s title) as “Lanken,” I think I may have overlooked a few things—most notably some good points made against the bill. I said initially that “the pros” of the bill “monumentally outweigh any sort of perceived con” and that passing it is the “obvious” way to go. I believe now that those arguments are too narrow-minded and fail to fairly interact with some serious issues with the proposed law. Here are my three main problems with the Laken Riley Act upon rethinking my previous stance.
1. On The Dispatch’s “Advisory Opinions” podcast, I first heard the very important point that the Laken Riley Act as it stands could actually lead to more immigrants being released than detained unless Congress passes additional legislation. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) found this bill upon becoming law could qualify up to 60,000 unauthorized immigrants to detention, but ICE only has funding for 42,000 beds and already have 39,000 migrants in custody. That means if ICE does not receive additional funding, tens of thousands of migrants—some potentially more dangerous than the accused shoplifters and such mandated to be detained under the Laken Riley Act—would have to be released in order to detain the migrants covered under this probable law to be.
So, what good would this law do if no provision is made for the funding of more detention beds? A simple amendment could have been made to include funding to ensure that the bill’s mandates are fulfilled. But that didn’t happen. (Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, says Congress is working on giving ICE additional funding).
2. Though I brushed off concerns about the bill leading to migrants falsely accused of theft being detained, I did not consider the broader scope of this possible dilemma. There are circumstances when this law could apply to legal immigrants who leave and re-enter the U.S. I’ve heard other critics of the Laken Riley Act claim the bill could lead to migrant children being cruelly detained, but besides the possibility of that actually happening being extremely low, the laws that already exist would most likely check chilling cases like those from happening.
I still stand by my point that I do not feel bad if an immigrant who willfully crossed the border illegally gets falsely accused and detained. If a migrant doesn’t want to be detained potentially due to a false witness, then they never should have broken the law to cross the border in the first place. I feel completely differently if we’re talking about children though. While I don’t find the arguments that the Laken Riley Act could lead to children and certain legal immigrants getting detained to be convincing, I do believe that the bill should have been clearer and amended to ensure these situations don’t happen.
3. While the idea of the Laken Riley Act is a good start to tackling our immigration crisis, we need much better than this bill. Last year, Congressional Democrats took steps to compromise with Republicans to pass a stronger border bill. But Congressional Republicans said the bill was not strong enough and killed it. Compared to the Laken Riley Act, that border bill was much stronger. But whether or not that bill should have been passed isn’t the point. If Democrats are showing a willingness to pass bills to deal with border security and illegal immigration, the new Republican-controlled Congress should capitalize and get to work on passing stronger bills on a bipartisan basis. Republicans may control the Senate, but they’ll need some Democrats to get many of their agendas past the filibuster.
Though I have listed my problems with the Laken Riley Act, I’m not saying now I’m totally opposed to its passage in Congress. If additional funding is soon provided for ICE to get more detention beds, then I think the bill will do much more good than harm. The Laken Riley Act attempts to provide a common-sense solution to tackling unauthorized immigrants committing crimes, but it currently lacks effective means to properly carry out its objectives and fails to address the big-picture problems with our immigration system.
Unlike what I asserted in that previous column, this point actually is obvious: The Laken Riley Act as it stands simply isn’t going to cut it.