Some Senate Democrats face a difficult choice later this week when they must decide whether to vote to pass the so-called Laken Riley Act, which would force the Department of Homeland Security to detain all illegal migrants charged with burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. The House passed the bill by a wide, bipartisan margin on Tuesday. 

The bill is named for a University of Georgia nursing student brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant in 2024, Laken Riley. The man, Venezuelan national José Ibarra, had previously been arrested on shoplifting charges, but did not show up for court hearings on the offenses. 

The House passed the legislation on Tuesday by a margin of 264 to 159, with all Republicans and 48 Democrats voting in favor of it. 

“Laken Riley was brutally murdered by an illegal alien that President Biden and the Democrats let into this country with their open border policy,” Speaker Johnson said in a statement after the vote. “It is hard to believe after countless horrific stories like Laken’s, ANY House Democrats would vote against deporting illegal aliens who commit violent crimes against American citizens.”

The measure is expected to be taken up by the new Senate Republican majority by Friday, where it has a decent chance of passing. Senator Ossoff, who is up for re-election next year in Georgia, told CNN Tuesday that he will vote to end debate on the measure, though he would not commit to supporting final passage because it could be amended during the process. 

With 53 seats in the upper chamber, Senator Thune will need just seven Democrats to join him in order to end debate and pass the bill. So far, two Democrats — Senator Fetterman and Senator Peters — have already said they will vote for the bill. 

Mr. Peters, who is a Michigan Democrat, is up for re-election in 2026 and will likely face a well-funded Republican challenger in a state won by President Trump just two months ago. The senator won his last race by only 90,000 votes out of more than 5 million cast. 

“Laken Riley’s story is a tragic reminder of what’s at stake when our systems fail to protect people,” Mr. Fetterman said in a statement. “No family should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one to preventable violence.”

Mr. Fetterman’s wife, Gisele Fetterman, is herself an immigrant, and the senator made sure to clearly state that he believes migrants make the country stronger. “Immigration is what makes our country great,” Mr. Fetterman said. “I support giving authorities the tools to prevent tragedies like this one while we work on comprehensive solutions to our broken system.”

Senate Democrats — especially those facing tough re-election battles in two years like Mr. Ossoff and Senator Shaheen — may feel a special need to appear strong on illegal immigration just weeks after Trump won on his fiercely tough-on-crime and tough-on-immigration platform. 

Opponents of the bill worry that it grants far too much power to state attorneys general and federal judges to handle American immigration law. The director of immigration studies for the Cato Institute, David Bier, called the legislation a “trojan horse” to crack down on legal immigration in a post on X. 

“The Laken Riley Act pretends to be about stopping ILLEGAL immigrants who commit crimes. In fact, it’s a Trojan horse designed to destroy legal migration because nativists cannot help themselves. They simply don’t care about illegal immigration as much as legal immigration,” Mr. Bier said. 

He points to one section of the bill that empowers state attorneys general to sue to stop the issuing of visas to foreign nationals if a migrant or a legal worker causes $100 worth of “harm” to taxpayers in their states. “A single district court in Texas could light the legal immigration system on fire and threaten the rights of millions of Americans to travel to those countries as well,” Mr. Bier writes. 

If the upper chamber passes the Laken Riley Act, Mr. Thune can withhold the legislation from the president’s desk for as long as he wants, according to the Congressional Research Service, meaning that it could be the first bill Trump signs once he returns to the Oval Office in less than two weeks.