Laken Riley Act

Congressional Research Service Summary

This legislation requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to issue detainers for undocumented immigrants who have been charged with or convicted of theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting. It was designated as S. 5, among the Senate’s first legislative priorities.

Bill Details

The bill was named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University who was killed while jogging in February 2024. The individual charged in her death was an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela who had previous criminal charges.

Key provisions:

• Requires ICE to issue detainers for immigrants charged with theft-related offenses
• Mandates custody within 48 hours of detainer issuance
• Allows state attorneys general to sue DHS for non-compliance
• Expands categories of crimes triggering mandatory detention

What the bill does not do:

• Appropriate a single dollar for implementation
• Compel local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE
• Fund detention beds, personnel, or transportation
• Address jurisdictions that decline to honor ICE detainers

The Vote

The bill passed both chambers with bipartisan support:

• Senate: 64-35 (12 Democrats voted yes)
• House: 263-156 (46 Democrats voted yes)

Notable Democratic crossover votes included Sens. John Fetterman (PA), Ruben Gallego (AZ), and Gary Peters (MI), all of whom face competitive elections or represent swing states.

The Cost Nobody Voted On

The bill text contains $0 in appropriations. Here’s what it actually costs:

Estimate	Source	Amount
CBO score (118th Congress version)	Congressional Budget Office	”Insignificant”
ICE initial estimate	ICE internal memo	$3.2 billion
ICE revised estimate (year one)	ICE to Congress	$26.9 billion
Three-year projection	Democratic Appropriations staff	$83 billion

ICE told Congress it would need 118,500 additional detention beds (currently funded for 41,500), 40,000 new employees, and a 25% increase in removal flights. ICE’s own assessment: implementation is “impossible to execute with existing resources.”

Congress heard “impossible” and passed it in 26 days.

The Unfunded Mandate Problem

The bill requires ICE to issue detainers — federal requests to local jails to hold someone for ICE pickup. But ICE detainers are requests, not orders. In jurisdictions with non-cooperation policies (Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, New York, and hundreds more), local law enforcement is under no obligation to honor them.

The bill lets state attorneys general sue DHS for not enforcing the law — but gives DHS no tools to compel local cooperation. So the federal government can be sued for failing to enforce a mandate that depends on local partners who refuse to participate, funded by appropriations that don’t exist.

This is the legislative equivalent of requiring everyone to fly, providing no planes, and letting people sue the FAA when nobody takes off.

The Politics

The bill’s swift passage — 26 days from introduction to signature — demonstrated that Congress can move quickly when there’s political will. Immigration has become a potent electoral issue, and moderate Democrats in swing states and districts faced pressure to support the bill.

The “S. 5” designation placed it among the Senate majority’s first priorities, signaling that immigration enforcement would be a key focus of the 119th Congress. Nobody wanted to be the member who voted against a bill named after a murdered nursing student, regardless of whether the bill would actually prevent similar tragedies or cost $27 billion to implement.

Source: This is a real law (P.L. 119-1) from the 119th Congress. View on Congress.gov. Cost estimates sourced from ICE via NPR, Fox News, and Semafor.

Disclaimer: The absurdity score and editorial commentary above represent this site’s opinion. Cost figures are sourced from ICE internal estimates and Congressional staff projections. Bill details should be verified at Congress.gov.