The House passed a bill on Tuesday that would target undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes for deportation, an opening salvo from a Republican majority that has vowed to deliver on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s promised crackdown at the border.
The measure, which drew the support of 48 Democrats as well as all Republicans, appears to be on a path to enactment, having garnered bipartisan backing in the Senate, which plans to take it up on Friday. It is named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed last year in Georgia by a migrant who had crossed into the United States illegally and was arrested and charged with shoplifting, but was not detained.
The quick action reflected how Republicans in Congress, emboldened by the governing trifecta they will hold when Mr. Trump takes office on Jan. 20, are using their power to revive and pass a raft of border security measures that died during the last Congress in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Those include bills to increase deportations, hold asylum applicants outside of the United States and strip federal funding from cities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities
