H.R.29/S.5, known as the Laken Riley Act, which has passed in the House and advanced in the Senate, would “flip our system of constitutional governance on its head and empower individual states and federal judges to run immigration law.”

The bill creates a new mandatory detention ground for undocumented immigrants arrested for any theft offense, including shoplifting, without waiting to see if they are convicted or acquitted of a crime. This provision perpetuates the harmful rhetoric of immigrant criminality, despite the fact that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born individuals.

The Laken Riley Act also creates five areas where state attorney generals would be authorized to seek federal court orders forcing the executive branch to carry out certain immigration enforcement actions—including detaining, releasing, granting parole, or deporting a particular noncitizen—or precluding the federal government from issuing visas to foreign nationals of countries that have not fully cooperated with the U.S. on deportations, including India and China.

As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, explains, “[g]iving states a veto power over thousands of decisions made every day by federal law enforcement officers and leaders will complicate immigration issues in every community and threaten to set off international incidents which could hurt U.S. interests around the globe.”

Call Senator Fischer and Senator Ricketts to urge them to vote against this bill.

• Senator Pete Ricketts: 202-224-4224
• Senator Deb Fischer: 202-224-6551