6mo ago

Democrats who helped to pass the Laken Riley Act failed their first test of the second Trump era

www.msnbc.com

Summary

Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law, expanding mandatory detention for undocumented immigrants accused of theft-related crimes and allowing state attorneys general to sue over immigration enforcement.

Despite warnings from civil rights groups and some Democrats about racial profiling and due process violations, the bill received bipartisan support.

Critics like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Cory Booker argue that Democrats who backed it succumbed to conservative fear-mongering, potentially harming immigrants and undermining civil rights.

24 comments

Same as always... Republicans block when they're in the minority, Democrats cave.
- how else would they put on the sham act of elections here in the United States?
  Democrats are for the people and always fight on their side but the evil Republican villains blocked all their attempts to help
  one side has to be "good" and the other "bad" otherwise the very thin veil of fog would lift and reveal the citizens are standing on one side of the gorge with the politicians of both sides on the other with the check writers pulling the strings
  not caving but just part of the plan
  look like the good party but in actuality just wolves in sheep's clothing
  
  You are giving them all way more credit for competence and organization than they deserve.
Democratic politicians and failing at a thing: name a more iconic duo
To be clear, the GOP is pure evil. But the absolute fecklessness of the “opposition” party beggars belief.
- Yeah. They stayed with the rules and presented a candidate who supported rights and justice and people and also wasn't fascist, and lost.
  Totally their fault for assuming people wouldn't vote for fascists or let others do it. Fuck them.
  The third party effort died, on schedule, soon as Putin didn't need it anymore. It's now okay to accept the Dems ran the best candidacy they could and still lost due to nullification and external meddling.
  
  Yes, it's their fault for assuming they were entitled to votes while telling the population they're wrong, the economy is great, we're going to deport immigrants, support genocide abroad, and fill the cabinet with Republicans like the Cheneys.
  Voting against trump was the obvious correct choice, then the dems did everything they possibly could to fix that beyond just outright dropping out.
Here’s a look at the dozen Democrats who voted for the bill, most of whom hail from swing states. Some were just elected to the Senate last fall, while others are set to face tough reelection races next year.
Catherine Cortez Masto
Cortez Masto represents Nevada, a swing state that Trump won by 3 points last fall — the first Republican presidential nominee to do so since George W. Bush in 2004. “Anyone who commits a crime should be held accountable,” Cortez-Masto said Monday on social media. “Nevadans want solutions that keep their families safe, and I will continue to work across the aisle to deliver for our state.”
John Fetterman
The Pennsylvania Democrat co-sponsored the measure, which was led by his friend, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. Fetterman, who didn’t vote Friday on the procedural motion, recently met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, with the president later describing the Democratic senator to the Washington Examiner as a “commonsense person.” November’s presidential election saw Pennsylvania voters back Trump for the second time, giving him a 2-point win over Kamala Harris.
Ruben Gallego
The freshman senator from Arizona, another co-sponsor of the legislation, voted for a version of the bill last year when he was a Phoenix-area congressman. “We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law, to prevent situations like what occurred to Laken Riley,” the Democrat said in a Jan. 8 statement. While Arizona narrowly backed Joe Biden in 2020, the state swung toward Trump last fall, backing him by more than 5 points.
Maggie Hassan
The New Hampshire Democrat sits on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and made a visit to the southern border in 2022, the last time she was up for reelection. “Making it easier to remove undocumented immigrants who commit crimes from our country is a basic first step that Congress can take, but we cannot stop here,” she said in a statement earlier this month. The Granite State narrowly backed Kamala Harris last year, though Trump significantly cut into the Democratic winning margin.
Mark Kelly
Arizona’s senior senator said he supported the measure “because federal authorities need to protect our communities from criminals.” Kelly is not up for reelection until 2028.
Jon Ossoff
Ossoff is among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection next year and represents the state where Riley was murdered. Like Arizona, Georgia also flipped in last fall’s presidential election, backing Trump by 2 points four years after voters there had given Biden a narrow win and elected Ossoff and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a pair of run-off elections. Gary Peters
The ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and former chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is also up for reelection next year in Michigan, a state Trump won in November. It was the second time Trump won the Wolverine State, which was seen as a key part of Democrats’ “blue wall” of must-win states.
Jacky Rosen
The Nevada Democrat narrowly won reelection last year while Trump was carrying the premier swing state out West.
Jeanne Shaheen
The new top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Shaheen up for a fourth term in 2026, although she hasn’t announced whether she plans to run again. Earlier this month, after a vote to advance the legislation, the New Hampshire Democrat said she’d “long called for Congress to do more to address our nation’s broken immigration system.”
Elissa Slotkin
The newly sworn-in senator from Michigan voted for the bill when it came up in the House last year. She said this month that the nation “must get past petty partisanship that continues to dominate the immigration debate.”
Mark Warner
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is up for a fourth term next year. Virginia has voted blue in federal elections for the past two decades, but since Warner’s last election, the commonwealth backed Republican Glenn Youngkin for governor in 2021 and Trump in November cut into his losing presidential margin from four years earlier.
Raphael Warnock
The Georgia Democrat didn’t support a Friday procedural motion to move forward on the immigration measure, but he voted Monday to pass it. In a statement, Warnock said the bill wasn’t what he would have written, but added: “I hope today’s vote is a genuine step toward true bipartisan cooperation to secure and strengthen resources at our southern border, smooth our asylum processes, and find a dignified solution for the scores of law-abiding undocumented Georgians working on our farms and in our communities.”
- I remember when Fetterman was running as a progressive.
  Then he had a stroke and it turned him into a regressive
  
  Then ~~he had a stroke~~ he got sweet, sweet deals from big money lobbiests and it turned him into a regressive
  
  stroke or drugs. musk/fetterman probably trump. I can see it be drugs.
- I hope today’s vote is a genuine step toward true bipartisan cooperation
  AAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS
- So, pretty much every Dem we bigged up spat on us.
  
  not sure on that but they are not my senators so I can't vote for their primary opponents when it comes up.
- I see Gallego wasted no time in being a complete disappointment.
  
  Then when they get blown out next election they’ll think it means they need to slide to the right some more..
- Thanks for the list
The Democrats vowed to fight with everything at their disposal though! And promised to never cooperate!
Except on key votes where Republicans need a few votes...
I just cannot with the DNC right now. They want to know why people don't vote for them, it's this. They aren't willing to let the GOP fall on it's face and call it out publicly.
- They also failed to put forward any real new ideas or new candidates. If you read the room even a little, you see that the American people are pissed off and want change. Obama got elected on a platform of radical change. Trump got elected on a platform of radical change. Hillary and Kamala, no radical change in their platform, both lost to the radical change pushing Trump.
  Put forward some younger candidates with new ideas and new energy, put forward some populist policies, stop playing on identity politics and expecting that everybody who's black or female is going to vote for you by default.
  Actually do that and you win elections.
I mean did anyone actually think Democrats would do anything else but fail?
People have not yet learned that Centrists do not have any actual platform. They choose to oppose one side or the other. It doesn’t matter what party they are part of, they are simply an opposition to both sides policy.
If you want progressive candidates, then vote for them. Don't blame this legislation on democrats.
(I mean, yes, do blame the DNC, but that's only part of the problem)

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