House Passes ‘Laken Riley Act’ to Deport Unauthorized Immigrants Charged With Minor Crimes

The House passed a bill on Tuesday that would target undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes for deportation, an opening salvo from a Republican majority that has vowed to deliver on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s promised crackdown at the border.

The measure, which drew the support of 48 Democrats as well as all Republicans, appears to be on a path to enactment, having garnered bipartisan backing in the Senate, which plans to take it up on Friday. It is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed last year in Georgia by a migrant who had crossed into the United States illegally and was arrested and charged with shoplifting, but was not detained.

The quick action reflected how Republicans in Congress, emboldened by the governing trifecta they will hold when Mr. Trump takes office on Jan. 20, are using their power to revive and pass a raft of border security measures that died during the last Congress in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Those include bills to increase deportations, hold asylum applicants outside of the United States and strip federal funding from cities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities.

“This bill is more than just a piece of legislation; it’s a return to common-sense American values,” Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 Republican, told reporters on Tuesday. “And under President Trump’s leadership, there will be a lot more where that came from.”

The bipartisan vote, 264 to 159, illustrated how some Democrats, stung by their party’s electoral losses in November, are reassessing their stances on issues like immigration even as they brace for a far more severe approach under Mr. Trump.