On January 29, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, which substantially widens the government’s authority with respect to immigration enforcement.
The Law
The new law institutes two separate changes into the immigration enforcement scheme in the United States:
- Providing for the detention of any undocumented foreign national who is arrested for, convicted of, or admits to: burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer, or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person; and,
- Giving state Attorneys General the right to sue the United States under certain circumstances if he or she believes that certain immigration laws are not being sufficiently enforced.
What to Expect:
- Undocumented individuals will be detained at the local, state and federal levels for all theft crimes, including shoplifting;
- States may sue the federal government for not sufficiently enforcing immigration laws, particularly those, regarding exclusion and deportation. Additionally, they may sue the government in the event that it fails to suspend visa issuance for countries that refuse to take in deported individuals. As we saw a suspension of visa issuance in Colombia this week for this very reason, we can likely expect this to be an immediate consequence of any foreign country which refuses to accept deported individuals;
- Countries that resist repatriation of deported migrants are classified by Immigration & Customs Enforcement as “recalcitrant (https://www.ice.gov/remove/visa-sanctions)” countries. In a letter dated July 11, 2024 (https://roy.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/roy.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Recalcitrant_Countries_243%28d%29_Letter_FINAL.pdf), to the Department of Homeland Security, seventeen members of the House of Representatives identified the following countries as “recalcitrant,” and, thus, potentially subject to suspension of visa issuance: People’s Republic of China, Bhutan, Burundi, Cambodia, Cuba, Eritrea, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Pakistan, and Russia as recalcitrant countries.10 Additionally, ICE considers Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Burma, Ethiopia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, North Macedonia, Samoa, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tonga, Ukraine, Vietnam and Yemen
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