The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act (S. 5) on Wednesday afternoon for the second time this year, agreeing to Senate amendments. On the final tally, 46 Democrats joined Republicans in passing the bill (263-156), similar to the earlier vote. The bill, which would enhance the operations of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now goes to President Donald Trump — the first bill of his second term — who has indicated he will sign it.

The act would prevent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from releasing illegal immigrants charged with burglary, theft, or larceny (as Laken Riley’s killer had been), in addition to those charged with domestic violence, murder, and drug offenses. The Senate amended the act to also require DHS to keep in detention illegal immigrants charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer or with acts causing death or bodily harm. The act also allows state officials to sue the federal government for failing to enforce immigration law.

“It boggles my mind, but the Biden administration had this idea that you didn’t need any kind of limitations on people coming across the border,” exclaimed Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) on “Washington Watch” Wednesday. “They basically released anybody and everybody that showed up, whether they claimed asylum or not.” This includes “at least 99” suspected terrorists, as counted by a House subcommittee report in August 2024.

News that America’s border was effectively open provoked a surge in illegal border crossings, so that “the volume of people coming across overwhelmed the Border Patrol to the point that probably around two million ‘gotaways’ came across,” Cornyn added. “You have to believe they were up to no good.”

Meanwhile, ICE agents have already arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants during Trump’s presidency. Border czar Tom Homan announced on Wednesday morning that ICE arrested 308 illegal migrants on Trump’s first full day in office (Tuesday). “We’re concentrating on the worst first,” including “public safety threats” and “national security threats,” he said on Fox & Friends. “Some of them were murderers. Some of them were rapists. Some of them raped a child. Some sexually assaulted a child.”

Numerically speaking, this arrest rate is roughly similar to the rate under the Biden administration. From January 2024 through September 2024 (the last month for which data is available), ICE arrested 84,414 illegal immigrants, which comes out to an average of exactly 308 arrests per day.

The difference is that the Trump administration actually stands behind ICE’s mission — to “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.” By restricting how and where ICE could operate, Biden’s DHS undercut that mission. “ICE has really, basically, been neutered as a result of the Biden administration policies,” Cornyn complained.

This means that the Trump administration will actually prioritize the arrest and repatriation of the millions of illegal immigrants who have also been convicted of other crimes, while at the same time shutting down the open border so dangerous criminals cannot re-enter the 50 states.

The Trump administration has also published their plans to prioritize immigration enforcement by targeting the worst offenders first. “Mr. Homan has been put in charge of repatriating or deporting people who are not legally here in the first place,” said Cornyn. “I assume they will go through some sort of prioritization schedule. And that includes the worst of the worst. … There are thousands of people who have committed crimes, who have been convicted of those crimes, [but] who are in the United States.”

Federal efforts to locate, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants guilty of additional crimes are also scaling up. The Trump administration is working to expand detention space, review multiple agency databases for the whereabouts of illegal immigrants, and assign more officers to track them down.

“It’s going to be a very intensive effort to try to locate them and try to get them returned out of the United States, into their home country,” said Cornyn. “This also sends a message that there are consequences associated with coming to the United States illegally, something that the Border Patrol tells me is absolutely essential to establishing deterrence to prevent people from coming in the first place.”