(Washington) The US Senate on Monday adopted a bill that attacks illegal immigrants accused of crimes, a few hours after the inauguration of Donald Trump, who made the fight against illegal immigration his main focus countryside.
Published yesterday at 6:58 p.m.
The text, which requires the detention by federal law enforcement of illegal immigrants suspected of certain crimes, was adopted by the upper house with a Republican majority with 64 votes for and 35 against.
“It’s time to return to common sense. It is time to return to the rule of law,” Republican Senator Katie Britt declared in the chamber.
“We are a nation proud of immigration. We are also a nation of laws. And the lawlessness ends today,” she added.
Several Democratic senators voted for the text, a sign of the changing trends in the subject of immigration within the American political class.
But other opposition senators denounced the staggering cost of the measure according to them, putting forward the figure of 83 billion dollars over the first three years.
“That’s a lot of money to spend on a bill that’s going to cause chaos,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said on X.
-An initial version of the bill was passed in the House of Representatives, but the Senate made amendments and the text must now make its way back to the lower house.
A final vote is expected later in the week, as is a subsequent promulgation by Donald Trump, who promised Monday in his inauguration speech to “send millions and millions of criminal aliens back to where they came from.” They come.”
The bill was named the Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old student killed in February 2024 in the southeastern United States by an illegal Venezuelan immigrant.
José Antonio Ibarra, 26, had been arrested before this murder for shoplifting. He has since been sentenced to an irreducible life sentence.
The affair had created significant stir during the electoral campaign and had been extensively exploited by Donald Trump and the Republicans, who blamed this murder on the lax policy of the Biden administration in terms of border control.
They had demanded that the Democratic president offer an “apology” to Laken Riley’s family.
