BREAKING: Trump Signs First Piece of Legislation as 47th President

Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law Wednesday, the first piece of legislation he has signed since being sworn in as the 47th president. The law directs U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain illegal aliens charged with theft, assaulting a law enforcement officer, or other crimes causing death or serious bodily injury.   

The bill is named after Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who was murdered by Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela, in February 2024. Ibarra had been arrested the year prior on other unrelated charges but was released and never deported.

“I met the parents of Laken, and they were incredible people,” Trump said Monday night during a speech to GOP House members. “They were just so devastated—I can’t even explain to you. You can’t say somebody’s life is over, but essentially, their life is so different that it can never be the same.” 

“She was beautiful, she was a great, great person,” Trump said of Riley. “But to have a bill of such importance named after her is a great tribute.”  

The Laken Riley Act is the first major immigration reform-related bill to pass through Congress in years. Its passage shows “potential for additional enforcement bills that will help us crack down on criminal aliens and totally restore the rule of law in our country,” Trump said.  

The act received bipartisan support. The bill first passed through the House of Representatives with support from Republicans and 48 Democrats on Jan. 7. Initially, it just addressed illegal aliens charged with theft. Two amendments were added in the Senate, one from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, expanding the bill to also prioritize the arrest of illegal aliens charged with crimes causing death or serious bodily injury; and one from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, requiring the detainment of illegal aliens charged with assault on a law enforcement officer.

The amended version of the bill passed the Senate on Jan. 20 with support from Republicans and 12 Democrats. The House then passed the amended version of the bill with support from 46 Democrats. 

Ibarra, Riley’s killer, first crossed into America as an illegal alien in 2022, according to officials. He was arrested in 2023 in New York on charges of child endangerment but was released before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could ask local law enforcement to hold him. Ibarra later moved to Georgia.    

On the morning of Feb. 22, 2024, Riley left her home and went for a run along a wooded trail on the Athens campus of her alma mater, the University of Georgia, but never returned. The nursing student’s body was found hours later, and authorities determined she had died from blunt force trauma and suffocation.   

In November, a judge found Ibarra guilty of murdering Riley and sentenced him to life in prison without parole.   

“If President Trump was president the last four years, the man that killed Laken Riley would’ve been detained and arrested in New York,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told “The Daily Signal Podcast” just before Trump’s inauguration.  

Homan explained that under the Biden administration, ICE was directed to not arrest illegal aliens unless they were “convicted of a serious crime,” but if Trump had been president, according to Homan, Ibarra “would’ve been taken into custody” after his initial offense in New York.  

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., wrote the Laken Riley Act and told The Daily Signal that the bill is directed at an issue that “is not just a partisan problem. This is a bipartisan problem, and we just gave a bipartisan solution.”  

Collins added that passage of the bill is a step toward cementing Trump’s border and immigration-related executive orders into law.  

Trump signed a flurry of border and immigration-related executive orders within the first 24 hours of being sworn into office, including orders to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy, which requires illegal aliens filing for asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico for their asylum claim to be heard in court.  

The Trump administration has surged resources to the southern border, and the Pentagon has deployed 1,500 active-duty troops to the border to aid with “enforcement operations.”  

ICE agents have already arrested thousands of criminal illegal aliens since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, many of whom have been put on military planes and deported out of the U.S. 

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has also rolled back restrictions relative to the locations where ICE agents can make arrests, giving agents the authority to apprehend illegal aliens in schools and churches.

Furthermore, The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the DHS has granted some law enforcement officials the powers of immigration officers. Specifically, agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshals Service have been granted immigration-enforcement authority to arrest illegal aliens.  

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