Arizona Dems join GOP in backing bill to jail immigrants for non-violent crimes

Arizona’s Democratic U.S. senators and Gov. Katie Hobbs are joining Republicans in backing legislation that would require federal officials to jail immigrants, including asylum seekers and DACA recipients, for non-violent crimes like shoplifting — even before they’ve been proven guilty.

Under the Laken Riley Act, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would be forced to detain people without citizenship status who are accused of, charged with or convicted of burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting.

The legislation is named after the Georgia nursing student who was killed in February 2024 by Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra. Republicans have seized on Riley’s murder to advocate for harsh immigration policies, and have touted the act as a preventative measure. In 2023, Ibarra and his brother received citations for shoplifting.

Immigrant rights organizations and Democratic leaders in Congress have sounded the alarm over the proposal, which they say unfairly targets people who have yet to be convicted of any wrongdoing and includes no exceptions for immigrants like DACA recipients, who have been granted a legal shield from deportation.

While the legislation failed to make it out of the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate last year, the political future of the bill is far brighter this year, evidenced by its swift movement through the U.S. House of Representatives this week. Republicans now hold slim majorities in both chambers. But Democrats, aiming to strengthen their border security bonafides to voters, have also thrown their support behind the bill. And for the bill to succeed in the upper chamber, it needs the votes of at least eight Democrats.

On Wednesday, both of the Grand Canyon State’s Democratic U.S. senators, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, issued statements saying they will vote to pass the Laken Riley Act when it goes up for debate on Friday. Gallego, whose mother is an immigrant from Colombia, has recently sought to sharpen his stance on immigration after a political career marked by staunch immigrant rights advocacy, promising to work with the incoming Trump administration despite threats of mass deportation. In a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter, he characterized the bill as a safeguard against future crimes.

“Arizonans know better than most the real consequences of today’s border crisis,” he wrote. “We must give law enforcement the means to take action to prevent tragedies like what occurred to Laken Riley.”

Along with vowing to support the passage of the bill later this week, Gallego also registered as a co-sponsor, emphasizing his approval of it. But this isn’t the first time he’s voted to back the bill. While serving as a U.S. Representative last year and in the middle of a campaign for U.S. Senate, Gallego cast his vote for the failed iteration of the Laken Riley Act.

Shortly after the freshman senator announced his support, Kelly’s spokesperson told Politico he, too, would vote to advance the bill, and added that he would continue “working with Republicans and Democrats on it and other solutions to secure the border and fix our broken immigration system”.

Just hours later, Hobbs weighed in on social media, lauding Gallego’s move.

“Thank you Senator Gallego for representing Arizona well and cosponsoring this legislation,” she wrote in a post on X. “The Laken Riley Act is an important step forward that will help keep our communities safe and secure our border.”

The praise was a stark departure from Hobbs’ time in office, where she has swiftly rejected hostile proposals from Arizona Republicans and advocated instead for increased funding for border communities and law enforcement agencies. The Democrat has also repeatedly reiterated her support for the state’s DACA and Dreamer populations, repeatedly meeting with them to hear their concerns and proposing a scholarship fund for undocumented college students in her freshman year.

Christian Slater, a spokesman for Hobbs, said that her support for DACA recipients and Dreamers remains unwavering, and dismissed concerns that the Laken Riley Act is anti-immigrant and hostile to both groups.

“(Hobbs has) made clear that she stands with DACA recipients and Dreamers. It’s something that she reiterates time and again,” Slater said, adding: “There’s a difference between Dreamers and people who are committing crimes.”

The trio weren’t the only elected officials to voice their support of the Laken Riley Act. In the lower chamber, Arizona’s six Republican U.S. Representatives voted to pass the bill on Tuesday. Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton joined them. Only newcomer Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat representing a majority Hispanic and Democratic congressional district, voted in opposition. Tucson Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva, who is battling cancer, was absent.

Immigrant advocacy rights groups across the country and in Arizona have sharply criticized the legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Congress earlier this week urging House members to vote down the act, writing that it does nothing to keep Americans safe and will only cost taxpayers money and lead to unfair arrests. And the federal government already has the power to detain any noncitizens during deportation proceedings, wrote Mike Zamore, the organization’s national director.

Instead, the legislation threatens to overburden local public safety efforts and result in unfair arrests, according to Sarah Mehta, ACLU’s senior border policy counsel.

“Mandating mass detention will make us less safe, sapping resources and diverting taxpayer money away from addressing public safety needs,” she said in a written statement. “Detaining a mother who admits to shoplifting diapers for her baby, or elderly individuals who admit to nonviolent theft when they were teenagers, is wasteful, cruel, and unnecessary.”

Noah Schramm, the border policy strategist for the Arizona branch of the ACLU, pointed out that the legislation dangerously bolsters nativist sentiment against immigrants, many of whom have lived in the state for decades.

“This bill contains dangerous changes to the law that will hurt long-time residents by requiring the government to detain people who have not been convicted or even charged with a crime, potentially sweeping thousands of people into mandatory detention,” he said in an emailed statement. “Stripping long-time residents of critical protections because of an arrest or criminal charge will not improve public safety but will accelerate the vilification of non-citizens, including long-time residents.”

Local immigrant and Latino advocacy groups expressed particular concern over the bill’s potential to loop in people who have not yet been convicted of any wrongdoing.

Joseph Garcia, the executive director of Chicanos Por La Causa Action Fund, a nonprofit organization that works to advance Latino success in Arizona in areas such as education, voting and economic well-being, said he fears the Laken Riley Act might jeopardize the constitutional guarantee of due process.

“We remain steadfast in the belief of American values, which include due process as part of a fair justice system.”

“Due process is one of those things, growing up in this country, that’s always been a north star – something that doesn’t exist everywhere else,” echoed José Patiño, a DACA recipient and the vice president of education for Aliento. “All human beings have due process, whether they’re U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, everywhere between undocumented and with legal status.”

Patiño said that Aliento, which advocates on behalf of Dreamers and DACA recipients in Arizona, has reached out to Gallego and Kelly to discuss how the legislation could devastate those groups.

“We believe Dreamers, DACA recipients and undocumented youth are as American as everybody else, except we don’t have the paperwork that says we’re American citizens,” Patiño said. “We’re not being treated like everybody else and I understand that some don’t believe that we belong in this country but we do.”