BREAKING: Congress passes Laken Riley Act requiring ICE to detain migrants charged with theft
Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, faces murder charges after being previously apprehended in New York for endangering a child and received a citation for misdemeanor shoplifting in Georgia last October, alongside his brother Diego Ibarra.
The House of Representatives on Thursday passed the Laken Riley Act, which comes in response to the brutal murder of Laken Riley, a nursing student who was killed by an illegal immigrant while on a walk on the campus of the University of Georgia.
The act passed by a vote of 251 to 170, with Democrats comprising those who voted against the act, which, once passed, requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain illegal aliens charged with local theft or burglary — of which Riley’s killer was.
Jose Antonia Ibarra, an illegal from Venezuela, has been charged with murder. He was previously arrested in New York for endangering a child and cited for a misdemeanour while shoplifting last October in Georgia along with his brother Diego Ibarra, per Fox News.
The bill’s leading sponsor, Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, called Riley’s murder a “wake-up call.”
“The senseless murder of Laken Riley by Jose Ibarra, who had no business being in this country, was another wakeup call as Americans experience an illegal alien crime wave because of Joe Biden's open border and local sanctuary city policies,” said Mike Collins in a statement to Fox News.
“I wish we could bring Laken back, but we must now turn our focus to ensuring this doesn't happen to another American. That's why I introduced the Laken Riley Act,” he added.
“More serious crimes already require ICE to issue detainers but had Athens, GA Police reached out to ICE about Jose Ibarra when he was cited for shoplifting, and ICE issued a detainer and picked him up, Laken Riley would be alive,” said the Republican Congressman.
Per Fox News, Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler voiced his opposition to the legislation, claiming that it was “exploiting her death for yet another partisan stunt.”
“Rather than approaching this tragic event in a thoughtful manner, Republicans appear to have just thrown together language from existing unrelated bills that target and scapegoat immigrants to score cheap political points in an election year while doing nothing to address the situation at the border,” he said. “This approach is fundamentally unserious.”
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