The immigration bill that’s accelerating a Democratic reckoning (original) (raw)

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In today’s edition … Biden’s final pardons and commutations expected in the coming days … Progressive group looks to recruit ‘next generation of primary challengers’… but first …

Laken Riley Act splinters Democrats, advocacy groups

Democrats’ post-election reckoning on the issue of illegal immigration is quickly coming to a head with the Laken Riley Act.

Forty-eight Democrats helped pass it out of the House a week ago, and a majority of Senate Democrats voted Thursday to overcome a filibuster. But some advocacy groups — and fellow Democratic lawmakers — are increasingly urging caution or opposition, worried that the party is glossing over the details as it rushes to resolve a political vulnerability.

Expect more of this spilling out into the open after senators voted Monday to begin debate on the bill this week, as well as onpossible amendments.

“Big picture, we see this as a knee-jerk reaction by Democrats who are trying to overcorrect,” Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, told us Monday afternoon. “Even on the political question, this is not going to help Democrats in the long run. And they need to learn this lesson because there are going to be other bills coming.”

In its current form, the legislation would require federal authorities to detain undocumented immigrants who are accused of, arrested or charged in cases of theft and related crimes. It’s a response to the murder last year of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who was killed by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant who had been previously arrested for shoplifting.

It’s a challenging political, legal and moral puzzle for Democrats. After their losses in the November election, they are looking to show they are taking concerns about illegal immigration seriously, but opponents of the proposal argue it is bad policy, bad politics — or both.

Cárdenas said it will not stop Republicans from painting Democrats as weak on the border — “The ads are still going to come” — and could embolden the GOP to continue pushing the envelope on immigration policy. Voters of Tomorrow, a progressive youth outreach group, said in a statement Monday that Democrats “underperformed with young voters in 2024, and by legitimizing Republican’s xenophobic fearmongering, they are only setting themselves up to fail for years to come.”

A number of Senate Democrats who voted to proceed to the bill — including Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) — have suggested they did so because they wanted a chance to amend the legislation,not necessarily because they support it in its current form. They are worried about the threshold for detention — a person being charged versus convicted — and provisions that give power to state attorneys general to sue the federal government over immigration policy disagreements.

“Americans deserve for us to debate the issue seriously, including by considering amendments from the Democratic side,” Schumer said on the floor.

The bill cleared another procedural hurdle Monday night as the Senate voted 82-10 to officially start debating the proposal.

As he walked out of a meeting with other Democrats on Monday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) told us they had discussed a number of possible amendments and he would like to see many make it into the bill — but he and others coming out of the meeting declined to say which specific amendments they want most ahead of what might become a bitter negotiation.

Emboldened by their November victories, Republicans don’t appear to be in a particularly accommodating mood. Multiple members of leadership vowed Friday not to let Democrats “weaken” the bill, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) sent his own warning shot in a Monday floor speech.

“It would be incredibly disappointing if Democrats voted to move to the bill simply to attempt to load it down with poison pills or unrelated measures,” Thune said. “This is not — I emphasize not — a comprehensive immigration reform bill. It is an attempt to right one wrong.”

Republicans have made the argument that Donald Trump’s victory — as well as wins in Congress — indicate the American electorate wants to see a massive immigration overhaul that would send more people back to their countries of origin. Immigration was considered among the most salient issues to most voters in this last election, according to exit polls. And Trump has rallied his base around the false assertion that undocumented immigrants have been major contributors to skyrocketing levels of crime.

Centrist Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), who voted for the House version of the bill, compared the presidential election to a report card — one that shows an area where Democrats need to gain ground. Landsman argued the results are an indication that voters have felt or witnessed how their communities have struggled to keep up with the flow of people across the border, and Democrats must respond to that.

“It’s not political — it shouldn’t be — to take those election results into account as you move forward,” Landsman told us, referring to fellow Democrats. “These election results are voters telling their elected officials what they want. It’s important for elected officials to listen.”

What we’re watching

In the Senate

The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to begin the confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice to lead the Pentagon, today at 9:30 a.m. The confirmation hearings for Douglas A. Collins (for secretary of Veterans Affairs) and Doug Burgum (for secretary of the Interior) were originally scheduled for today but werepostponed due to a delayed FBI background check and Democratic concerns about missing paperwork, respectively.

Democrats have a lot to talk about with Hegseth, including his past comments about women and minorities, as well as his limited Pentagon experience and alleged misconduct, our colleagues Abigail Hauslohner, Liz Goodwin and Missy Ryan report.

You can see how Hegseth’s hearing goes, along with those of 816 other government positions that require Senate approval, at the Post’s Trump Appointee Tracker.

At the White House

At 5:30 p.m., President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks about his administration’s record on conservation and sign proclamations creating the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in California.

At the White House

Biden’s final pardons and commutations expected in the coming days

In Biden’s final days in office, many are watching to see to whom he may grant commutations and pardons in the next week.

Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pennsylvania) and others plan to hold a news conference at the Capitol today at 11:30 a.m. to emphasize the issue and bring attention to those they believe should receive clemency.

Meanwhile, those involved in conversations with the White House to advocate for mass clemency actions by the president have been particularly encouraged by their recent discussions, especially about clemency for domestic abuse survivors and nonviolent offenders, according to one congressional aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, which the aide described as happening “very often.”

“We’re really optimistic about what we’re going to see this week,” the aide said.

The campaign

Progressive group looks to recruit ‘next generation of primary challengers’

Justice Democrats, the progressive group that has helped elect the “Squad” in the House, is launching its candidate recruitment efforts across the country today as it looks to return to a more offensive posture in the 2026 elections.

The group, in an announcement shared with us, promised to “recruit the next generation of primary challengers in Democratic primaries in open seats and blue districts against Democratic incumbents who are out-of-touch with their constituents.”

The group was on defense in the last election as pro-Israel groups spent big to unseat two Squad members, former representatives Jamaal Bowman (New York) and Cori Bush (Missouri). Now Justice Democrats is hoping to focus more on electing new allies as the second Trump term begins and Democrats look to counteract his inroads with blue-collar voters.

“The Democratic Party can only win back working class voters with real, working class leaders and Justice Democrats is proud to continue to recruit them to run for Congress,” Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a statement.

On the Hill

Trump’s homeland security pick is banned from a tenth of her state

Kristi L. Noem will face tough questions during her confirmation hearing to be secretary of Homeland Security. One topic that’s sure to come up: how the South Dakota governor is banned from parts of her own state.

Noem and tribal leaders first butted heads when she passed an anti-rioting law in 2019, which Native American protesters trying to block the Keystone oil pipeline decried as targeted legislation.

In 2020, Noem threatened to sue the Oglala Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux after they instituted checkpoints at their borders as a health precaution during the early days of the covid pandemic.

The ban came in 2024, after Noem claimed “cartels have a presence on several of South Dakota’s tribal reservations.” Her remarks were met with criticism from tribal leaders, and tribes began barring her from their land in February. Noem responded by saying at a news conference: “Instead of working with me, many of them have chosen to banish me. I will ask them right back, why have they not banished the cartels?”

Law enforcement experts says Noem’s claims of a relationship between cartels and tribes are off base.

“These small communities are not lucrative targets for a cartel,” said Brendan Johnson, a former U.S. attorney for South Dakota. “It would make no sense for them to set up some sort of business empire on the reservation.”

The Media

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