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Anti-immigrant state officials and federal judges would be able to direct immigration enforcement, including whether to detain individual immigrants, under a Republican bill that passed the House and is being considered in the Senate with bipartisan support. will have new powers to do so.
The Laken-Reilly Act aims to overturn Supreme Court precedent and give states like Texas the power to bring the kinds of immigration cases against the federal government that courts, including conservative justices, have rejected. , say legal experts.
But the bill goes further, giving state attorneys general the power to sue to overturn decisions to release individual immigrants, and even broadly targeting foreign countries that refuse to accept nationals subject to deportation. It would even allow the imposition of severe sanctions.
Democrats are desperate to show they are pivoting to the issues that will cost them their lives in the 2024 election, and the bill passed the House and cleared procedural steps on the Senate floor. It easily cleared the first hurdle, with only nine senators voting against the measure on Thursday. But granting new litigation powers to states has emerged as a flashpoint for some Democrats seeking changes before the final vote.
“We don’t want our entire immigration system to be litigated in district courts across the country,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told reporters last week. Republicans will likely need the votes of seven Democrats for final approval. Thirty-three members of the Democratic caucus voted in favor of moving to the next step in the process.
The bill would give state attorneys general multiple ways to intervene in how the federal government enforces immigration laws.
Countries could sue if they determine that the Department of Homeland Security is not enforcing the full scope of the bill’s obligations to detain certain immigrants.
They could also file federal lawsuits challenging DHS and immigration judges’ decisions to release individual immigrants accused of crimes in each state.
In particular, new legal powers will only flow in one direction. States can sue the federal government over decisions to release detained illegal immigrants, but the federal government is not allowed to sue states in cases of suspected illegal detention.
The attorney general could also seek a federal court order forcing the U.S. State Department to stop issuing visas to countries that refuse to accept nationals subject to deportation.
“A single district court judge can trigger a major international case that can have far-reaching implications for the U.S. economy and immigration as a whole,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the U.S. Immigration Council, said in a recent conference call. There is a possibility.” With reporters. “There is no reason for Congress to give state attorneys general the power to essentially decide who to sanction as a nation.”
Advocates of the bill say the provision is necessary after President Joe Biden and the previous administration refused to use all the tools Congress gave the executive branch to crack down on crimes committed by immigrants. claims.
The bill is named after Laken Riley, a college student who was raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant who had been arrested and released multiple times. Her killing, and the condemnation of Biden’s immigration policies that Republicans say caused it, were also prominent in President Donald Trump’s campaign and condemnation of Republicans who voted against him.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who sponsors the bill, said the attorney general provision is the “most enforceable” part of the bill. “If that were removed, the paper money would lose 90 percent of its shine.”
The court provision has received less attention than the portion of the bill that requires the detention of immigrants charged with certain crimes.
Among the new crimes that would subject immigrants to mandatory detention under the bill are non-violent crimes such as shoplifting and theft. Critics argue that these mandates would divert resources to apprehending and detaining violent criminals who are in the United States illegally.
With the attorney general provision, the bill’s authors seek to combine these requirements with a new mechanism that “gives states some way to fight back or challenge a president who chooses not to enforce their laws.” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy research. Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter immigration policies.
“States have tried numerous types of lawsuits to force the courts to hold the Biden administration accountable for enforcing the law, without significant success,” she said.
For example, in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas and Louisiana did not have standing to challenge the Biden administration’s changes to the government’s deportation priorities. Biden’s policies prioritized deporting immigrants who are national security threats or violent criminals over those accused of less serious crimes.
A new bill seeks to overturn that precedent by giving states the ability to sue over these changes in homeland security policy. It also allows for challenges in federal court to decisions by immigration judges to release individual immigrants from detention, which is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorney General and Department of Justice.
But the risks are particularly high with a provision that allows states to sue to seek court-ordered visa bans against so-called “recalcitrant countries” that do not accept immigrants subject to deportation. The United States has not been able to return some nationalities due to strained relations with certain countries, such as Venezuela.
Reichlin-Melnick said such a provision would allow Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, for example, to call for a ban on all visas for skilled workers from China and a complete halt to business tourism from India. It will be possible. This is because these countries refuse to repatriate their nationals. .
If the bill is ultimately passed, that provision, and perhaps others, will likely be challenged in court.
Vaughan acknowledged “legitimate concerns” about the bill’s visa sanctions provisions, but said that at least the legal battle “would provide some clarity on how the federal government can be guided to do its job more effectively.” He said that there is a possibility that the
Murphy, who did not vote when the bill went to a procedural vote on Thursday, said the attorney general’s rule would “make our immigration system even more complex, Byzantine and confusing.”
“The underlying bill appears to be a poorly constructed bill, but it could be improved,” he said.
CNN’s Ted Barrett, Sara Feliz and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
