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SENATE DEMOCRATS BOIL OVER LAKEN RILEY MISSTEPS  
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Alexander Bolton
January 21, 2025
The Hill
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_ “There is huge concern because we’re talking about the
mandatory imprisonment based on an accusation without a person even
being charged, let alone being convicted, and this applies to kids,”
one senator said. _

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrives to update
reporters on efforts to fund the government before the midnight Friday
deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024., AP
Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

 

The Laken Riley Act is roiling the Senate Democratic Conference, as
senators believe their party bungled immigration and border security
in 2024 but aren’t happy about the swift passage of a bill they
view as terrible policy. Democratic critics of the bill believe the
rush to pass it is a political overreaction from Democratic
colleagues scrambling to protect themselves on those issues.

Some Democratic senators are venting frustration about Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer
[[link removed]](D-N.Y.) giving a green
light to politically vulnerable colleagues to vote to advance
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the bill without getting an ironclad guarantee that Democrats would
have more opportunity to amend the legislation.

 
Those Democratic lawmakers have likened the handling of the bill to a
disorganized retreat and warn it has sparked deep frustration in a
caucus still stung from the loss of their majority in November.

“There is huge frustration that the bill didn’t go to committee on
something so consequential,” fumed one Democratic senator who
requested anonymity to discuss the intense debate that rocked the
caucus.

“There is huge concern because we’re talking about the mandatory
imprisonment based on an accusation without a person even being
charged, let alone being convicted, and this applies to kids,” the
senator said. “It’s a sweeping assault on core principles, and it
doesn’t even have a judicial review component.”

The senator voiced frustration that Senate
Democratic leadership​ didn’t press colleagues to block the
motion to proceed to the bill unless Republicans promised more votes
on amendments to change the bill on the Senate floor.

“There is enormous frustration,” the lawmaker added. “They put
up the white flag from the very beginning and said, ‘For too many
people [in the caucus], immigration is too toxic, and we have to just
get through this,’ without really understanding the gravity of this
bill and what it represents in terms of violating the norms —
indefinite detention, no judicial review, based on an allegation.”

Schumer downplayed the clash within his caucus, describing a lengthy
debate at last Tuesday’s lunch as a discussion “of all the great
issues.”

 
Democrats facing competitive reelections in 2026 and who represent
swing states, however, were eager to vote to advance the bill
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after President Trump and Republicans bashed their party all year over
the murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was
killed by a Venezuelan migrant who entered the country without legal
status and was previously arrested in New York and Georgia.

Ten Democrats voted Friday to advance the bill to a final up-or-down
vote, including Sens. Jon Ossoff
[[link removed]](D-Ga.), Gary Peters
[[link removed]](D-Mich.) and Jeanne Shaheen
[[link removed]](D-N.H.), who face
potentially competitive races next year.

The bill passed the Senate on Monday evening. 

Sen. Michael Bennet
[[link removed]](D-Colo.), who blasted the
bill as bad policy, said the lack of opportunity to modify the
legislation on the floor — aside from three amendments —
represents a broader failure of the entire Senate to meaningfully
debate immigration policy.

“I think that this bill reflects the way the Senate has broken down,
in some respects, in the fact that we’re not able to have votes on
amendments that would have improved the legislation. It’s really
problematic,” he said.

Bennet said he initially voted to proceed to the bill “so we could
have debate and so we could have amendments, and I feel quite strongly
that it would be better to leave decisions about whether [to]
incarcerate [individuals] to law enforcement when it comes to
nonviolent criminals.”

 
He was referring to the bill’s language that requires the mandatory
detention of migrants without legal status who have been accused of
theft but not convicted.

Eighty-two senators voted to proceed to the bill on Jan. 13,
including 24 members of the Democratic caucus.

Bennet warned the bill would require Immigration and Customs
Enforcement to spend billions of dollars incarcerating nonviolent
criminals instead of violent criminals. And he argued it would put
state attorneys general in charge of immigration policy, something he
said is a federal responsibility.

 
Bennet, a member of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” which put
together the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the
upper chamber with 68 votes in 2013, lamented that Democrats have
ceded what they called their “position of strength” on the issue.

“We once had a position of strength that was defined by the work we
had done on the ‘Gang of Eight’ bill that was a comprehensive
approach. It reflected a comprehensive set of principles that included
securing our border,” he said.

“Over the years, we have not transmitted effectively to the American
people that we believe in border security and having an immigration
system that better serves America’s economy,” he said. “I think
it’s important for us to enter the debates like the one we just had
[on the Laken Riley Act] with a clearer expression of where we stand
together.”

 
Bennet said the Democrats’ strategy of trying to insulate themselves
during the campaign from attacks related to the border by negotiating
a border security deal with Sen. James Lankford
[[link removed]](R-Okla.) wasn’t
effective.

“I think it was unconvincing to voters,” he said.

Even though the National Border Patrol Council, The Wall Street
Journal and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill, it
garnered only four Republican votes to advance it on the Senate floor.

 
Trump and Republicans continued to pummel Democratic candidates over
the huge influx of migrants during former President Biden’s four
years in office, which totaled roughly 10 million people.

“Donald Trump [[link removed]]turned our
party into a punching bag when it came to immigration and the border,
and there was no need for that to happen,” Bennet said.

Other Democrats vented over the swift passage of the Laken Riley Act,
which is likely to pass the House and make it to President Trump’s
desk.

 
Sen. Tim Kaine [[link removed]](D-Va.) joined
fellow Democrats in venting frustration over not getting an
opportunity to vote on more amendments.

“It is bad policy,” he said of the bill that passed the Senate on
Monday. “We had an amendment broadly supported by a big cross
section of our caucus that would have fixed the bill.”

He said it would have changed the standard for detainment and
deportation from arrest to conviction, “but [would have] allowed
arrest to be sufficient if somebody had a history of failing to appear
at immigration court proceedings.”

Kaine said, “There is frustration about it.”

“What’s frustrating is so many people signaled, ‘I’m going to
vote for it, whether there are any amendments or not.’ And once the
Republicans have enough Democrats who are on the record saying
they’re going to vote [for a bill] regardless, what motive do they
have to really have a robust amendment process … or to try to fix
the bill?” he said.

“I hope my colleagues won’t just signal in advance, ‘Well, we
don’t need to consider any amendments at all because I’m voting
yes regardless.’ I think that was a strategic error,” Kaine added.
“Leadership might have been able to give everyone a little bit of a
woodshed talk before.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders
[[link removed]](I-Vt.), who caucuses with
Democrats, said he had concerns “about the bill, the process and the
product.”

“This is a bill that has many, many deficiencies,” he said. “The
concern is what kind of precedent it sets in terms of criminal justice
and the degree we believe in due process.”

Sen. Peter Welch [[link removed]](D-Vt.) said
he was concerned with how the bill was handled.

“We should use the committee process where there’s an opportunity
to deliberate and discuss,” he said.

“My preference would be that deportation occur upon a conviction,
not a charge,” he added.

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* The Laken Riley Act; Immigration Policy; Immigrants Rights; US
Senate;
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