Reviews | Democrats will regret helping pass the Laken Riley law

Democrats have a terrible habit, during moments of right-wing backlash, of voting for Republican legislation that they don’t really seem to believe in and that they end up regretting.

The most egregious example is the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq, adopted amid the explosion of chauvinist thinking that dominated American politics after the September 11 attacks. The Democratic presidential candidates who had supported the resolution – John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden – then focused on trying to rationalize votes that were almost certainly motivated by political expediency and which put their stamp on a catastrophe.

Another shameful episode was the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. It was passed at a time when Democrats were on the defensive; Bill Clinton’s attempt to allow gays to serve openly in the military collapsed, Newt Gingrich’s Republicans took the House in the 1994 midterms, and Republican Bob Dole seemed poised to make same-sex marriage a issue in the next elections. In a bizarre apologetic statement, Clinton wrote that the law should not be “understood as providing an excuse for discrimination, violence, or intimidation against any person on the basis of their sexual orientation.” But as Clinton would later admit in calling for its repeal, she did worse, writing discrimination into law.

A bill called the Laken Riley Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House and could soon pass the Senate, is destined to be another entry in these archives of legislative shame. Given that anger over mass immigration contributed to Democrats’ defeat in November, it is perfectly understandable that some Democrats would directly attack border issues. The Laken Riley law, however, is not the right way to prove their moderation. This sweeping bill would upend our immigration system in ways that would last beyond Donald Trump’s presidency, ruining lives and handcuffing future Democratic administrations. Democrats who vote for the measure may dodge attacks from the right in upcoming elections, but once its true scope becomes clear, they will be answering for it for years to come.

The bill is named after a Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by José Ibarra, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela who had previously been apprehended for crimes including shoplifting and endangering children. Partly because of Ibarra’s arrests, the case became a cause celebre on the right. “The more they get away with it and the more we let these criminals go, it only emboldens them, and they step up their efforts,” said Mike Collins, the Georgia Republican who introduced the measure in the House.

If all the bill did was require the deportation of migrants convicted of petty theft, it would make sense that many Democrats would support it, if only because there are so few benefits politicians to defend the rights of undocumented shoplifters. But the bill goes much further than that. It mandates federal detention without bail for migrants who are simply arrested for any theft-related offenses, with no provision to release them if the charges are later dropped. (According to Axios, ICE is concerned that to make room for people accused of theft, it will have to release others in its custody, including some considered “threats to public safety.”)