{"id":4548,"date":"2025-01-07T16:30:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/immigration-bill-first-up-for-house-republicans\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T16:30:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T16:30:20","slug":"immigration-bill-first-up-for-house-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/immigration-bill-first-up-for-house-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration bill first up for House Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We\u2019re watching Democrats closely today as House Republicans put their first substantive piece of legislation on the floor for the 119th Congress.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student murdered last February, and it would require the detention of any undocumented migrant charged with theft or burglary. It\u2019s also be an early test of how Democrats will approach border issues after losing control of the White House and Senate in last year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson challenged Democrats this morning to join Republicans in passing the bill: \u201cIt can’t be just empty rhetoric. It’s got to be action, and we’re going to give them the opportunity to take action with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the House first took it up last March, 37 House Democrats crossed party lines<\/u><\/a> to support it, joining all Republicans who voted. We\u2019re closely watching whether that number grows today. <\/p>\n

A whip alert sent to House Democrats this morning said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, \u201cstrongly opposes this bill” and outlined the reasons why, including “ratchet[ing] up the number of mandatory detentions without increasing funding to carry them out.” But it did not formally urge a no vote.<\/p>\n

A Senate vote on advancing the legislation is expected to happen Friday, Blue Light News scooped yesterday<\/u><\/a>. With 52 Republican senators expected to support it \u2014 Sen.-elect Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) won\u2019t be sworn in until next week \u2014 eight Democrats or independents would have to come along to break a likely filibuster and ultimately pass the bill.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) became the first and only Democrat to cosponsor the legislation, as Punchbowl News first reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaken Riley\u2019s story is a tragic reminder of what\u2019s at stake when our systems fail to protect people,” Fetterman told Blue Light News in a statement. “No family should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one to preventable violence. Immigration is what makes our country great. I support giving authorities the tools to prevent tragedies like this one while we work on comprehensive solutions to our broken system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re watching Democrats closely today as House Republicans put their first substantive piece of legislation on the floor for the 119th Congress. It\u2019s the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student murdered last February, and it would require the detention of any undocumented migrant charged with theft or burglary. It\u2019s also be an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}