The U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 22 passed the Laken Riley Act, a bill that would increase the detention of illegal immigrants in the United States
This is the first bill going to President Donald Trump for his signature into law. Trump has spoken favorably of the Laken Riley Act and is expected to sign it.
The act is named for the late Laken Hope Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia who was murdered by José Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan national, on the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22, 2024.
Ibarra, who illegally entered the United States in September 2022, was convicted of felony murder and seven other criminal counts after a bench trial in the Athens-Clarke County Superior Court on Nov. 20, 2024….