The House on Thursday passed a bill that would require federal authorities to detain unauthorized immigrants who have been accused of theft, as Republicans seized on the recent death of a nursing student in Georgia to rebuke President Joe Biden’s border policies just hours ahead of his State of the Union address.
After 22-year-old Laken Riley, an Augusta University nursing student, was killed late last month while on a morning run, Republicans rushed the “Laken Riley Act” to the House floor to coincide with Biden’s annual address.
The legislation easily passed 251-170 with all Republicans and 37 Democrats voting for it. But the nine-page bill was designed more to deliver a political point than to enact law and had little chance of being taken up in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
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