
Immigrants and supporters march on the Las Vegas Strip on September 10, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Despite opposition from local immigration and civil rights organizations, who say the bill would strip migrants of due process, the Laken Riley Act sailed through Congress with bipartisan support last week.
All of Nevada’s federal congressional delegation have voted in support of the Laken Riley Act, which would require the Department of Homeland Security to take into custody undocumented immigrants who have been charged with theft and other crimes but not necessarily convicted.
The Republican-led bill passed with bipartisan support in the US House last week, and the Senate voted to advance the bill and open debate on it. Local advocacy groups across the Silver State had urged Nevada’s Democratic lawmakers to oppose the bill as it could lead to undocumented immigrants being unjustly detained and deported without due process.
The bill stems from the murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed last year while jogging at the University of Georgia. The perpetrator, José Antonio Ibarra, is a 26-year-old Venezuelan immigrant who crossed the US-Mexico border illegally. A judge convicted Ibarra on murder and other charges related to Riley’s death in November.
Passage of the bill also marks one of the first priorities of the Republican-led Congress, which retook control of both the House and Senate in last November’s election.
For years on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump has promised he would carry out the largest mass deportation in modern history, but he and other officials from the incoming administration have yet to offer detailed logistics on how such an operation would be carried out, other than deputizing local law enforcement and military personnel to carry out deportations.
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Advocates say the bill would require mandatory arrest and detention — without access to bail — of any undocumented person convicted of or merely arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting-related offenses, which betrays the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”
“This is a violation of basic human rights, and it’s a pretext for family separation,” Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada said. “It’s a form of policy that’s rooted in xenophobia, effectively exploiting one young woman’s tragic murder to denigrate an entire group of people.”
If signed, Haseebullah expects the national ACLU chapter and other civil rights groups to challenge the bill’s constitutionality.
“Let’s be real about what this bill is, it’s a bill that targets undocumented people for removal for low-level shoplifting,” Haseebullah continued. “I think it’s simultaneously shocking and disappointing to see how our delegation has handled this issue.”
Existing laws already state that undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes and other felonies are to be deported and they cannot avoid being deported.
“Our immigrant communities are a vital part of Nevada’s fabric, and we cannot stand idly by as they are targeted and dehumanized,” Shelbie Swartz, executive director of Battle Born Progress, said in a statement.
Laura Martin, the executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), said in a statement that while what happened to Riley is a tragedy, “the actions of one person do not define an entire group of people.”
Martin also called out Nevada’s delegation for “trying to out-Trump the MAGA faithful.”
But Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), and other Democrats from Nevada’s delegation, argued that it’s a “law and order” issue, and not an anti-immigrant issue.
“There’s not been a lot of pushback in our office,” Titus told The Nevadan on Friday. “We’ve had a lot of people call and say we should have voted for it. I voted for it before. It’s a law-and-order issue. I don’t see it as an anti-immigrant issue. I don’t think most immigrants are criminals. I certainly don’t want to separate families. It would have been nice [to put] an amendment just to protect Dreamers.”
Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) also said the bill should have been amended, specifically when it comes to due process.
“If you’re here illegally and you commit a crime, you should be deported,” Lee told The Nevadan in a separate interview Friday. “It’s as simple as that. I supported it before, and I support it again. I know the ACLU has concerns about due process. I hope that in the Senate, they’ll deal with the amendments to do that.”
Rep. Steven Horsford’s office told The Nevadan in a statement that “removing predators from our communities is about keeping our loved ones safe, plain and simple,” and that his focus is “on protecting Nevadans from ever experiencing what Ms. Riley’s family has endured.”
The Senate has yet to make amendments to the bill. Lee and Titus both noted they had voted for an identical version of the bill during the last Congress, but the wide bipartisan support from both chambers illustrates a dramatic reversal by Democrats in less than a year.
But a bill with bipartisan support, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good legislation, Haseebullah said.
“You can have bipartisan stupidity, and that’s why most people are generally disappointed by our Congress,” he said. “The time when we need our leaders to step up the most is times when there is peril. And this vote, in and of itself, is another demonstration of failures by Democrats.”
A previous iteration of the Laken Riley Act passed the House last March, but was stalled in the then-Democratically-controlled Senate. Some Democrats at the time accused Republicans of exploiting Riley’s death in order to advance their immigration agenda.
The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates roughly 168,000 undocumented immigrants were residing in Nevada as of 2022, more than two-thirds of whom are employed. The state is believed to be home to roughly 600,000 foreign-born individuals.
A study conducted last year by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that undocumented immigrants contributed at least $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022 — a number that would increase if they were granted formal work authorization. In Nevada, undocumented immigrants accounted for $507 million in 2022 tax revenue, the study found.
Most of that $96.7 billion paid by undocumented immigrants nationwide — $59.4 billion — was paid to the federal government, with those dollars funding things like payroll taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance — all of which are programs undocumented immigrants do not have access to. Undocumented immigrants in 40 states also paid higher state and local tax rates than the top 1% of households, according to the study.
Immigration advocate Leo Murrieta, who is the executive director of Make the Road Nevada, said the Democratic delegation’s actions were “about politics, not justice.”
“We all want to live in safe homes and communities where everyone is protected, respected, and treated with dignity,” Murrieta said in a statement. “Unfortunately, H.R. 29 does not deliver those solutions. Instead, it doubles down on harsh measures that create chaos in our immigration system, denies due process, and fails to make anyone safer.”

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