On Jan. 7, the Laken Riley Act passed the House of Representatives and advanced to the Senate, where lawmakers are currently debating it. The bill stalled in the Senate for most of 2024 but was revived in the 119th Congress. The bill permits state attorneys like anti-illegal immigration advocate Ken Paxton to sue for perceived damages caused to citizens by undocumented immigrants, and forces states to apprehend, detain and possibly deport undocumented immigrants accused of a crime. That’s right, accused, not convicted. The long-cherished legal precedent of “innocent until proven guilty” was overturned by a vote of 84-9 senators, including 33 Democrats. 

Laken Riley was a 22 year old nursing student at Augusta University when she was kidnapped and murdered with intent to rape on Feb. 22 by José Antonio Ibarra, an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang. Her story, as well as that of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl from North Houston who was allegedly murdered and raped on June 16 by fellow undocumented Venezuelan immigrants, is tragic, and should not be ignored by lawmakers. But condemning undocumented immigrants to deportation for petty theft isn’t the answer. Shortened waiting lists for naturalization proceedings and increased vetting are.

Hypothetically, if Ibarra had attempted to gain citizenship and had a proper background check prior to taking the citizenship exam, the murder of Laken Riley could’ve been avoided. Ibarra entered the United States in 2022 and was detained by federal authorities, who then released him into the country. Ibarra had been in the United States for two years prior to Riley’s murder. During that time, he committed several crimes, including injury of a child and multiple shoplifting incidents. The profound incompetence of authorities at every level in allowing this man into the country, then not putting him in removal proceedings after committing more than two crimes of moral turpitude simply because they occurred in different jurisdictions, is mind-boggling. 

The more thought-provoking question, though, is why cases like Laken Riley’s and Jocelyn Nungaray’s are used to justify demonization of all undocumented immigrants when such a move puts the federal government in an even more precarious financial situation? The Laken Riley Act will force ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to detain 60,000 people, which will require billions in federal funding. ICE currently has 39,000 out of 42,000 detention beds filled, meaning that in order to comply with the bill, ICE will have to release the 38% of those detainees who are not legally required to be there and increase its number of detention beds by 44,520 in order to even meet the requirements, though the organization is asking for more funding as a precautionary measure. Not only is this bill a blatant violation of longstanding legal precedent, as well as uncompromisingly racist, it is fiscally irresponsible, despite being spearheaded by a party that claims to represent law and order and be the paragon of fiscal conservatism. 

Throwing away the tax dollars of U.S. citizens who never asked for this and whose state economies rely on the contributions of undocumented immigrants, who work and pay taxes just like all Americans, is setting the stage for the financial ruin of this country amid an expanded national debt limit and proposed tariffs that will raise prices on foreign-produced goods. Texas is one of six states that raised an excess of $1 billion in taxes from undocumented immigrants in 2022—in fact, undocumented folks paid $4.9 billion in state and local taxes, an estimated $2,615 per person, according to Every Texan. But if you ask president-elect Donald Trump (who paid a grand total of $0 in 2020 in income taxes), or Ted Cruz, putting our economy underwater in order to meet the absurd demands of “Build the Wall” fanatics isn’t just a good thing. It’s a great thing.

Meanwhile, if you ask Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, the legislation is redeemable. Schumer and many of his Democratic colleagues have proposed narrowing the scope of offenses for which an illegal alien, in legal terms, could be detained. But this compromise sets a violently dangerous precedent for future cases. The willingness of Democratic leaders to compromise on issues of national importance is jarring, for certain. But it doesn’t come as a surprise. The Senate is Republican-controlled as of this past November, so regardless of what Schumer and his allies do, this isn’t a fight they can win. And they know it.

Hopefully, the fiscal impracticalities associated with the bill are enough to keep it from passing Congress and moving on to what will, by then, be a staunchly conservative president. But if Democrats push for compromise to make the bill more practical, they could unwittingly be optimizing it for future passage, whether in this Congress or future legislative sessions. They have until June to stall the bill, if they so choose.