DHS Pushes Back on Laken Riley Act

As the Biden administration prepares for its curtain call, it is either trying to wreck as much furniture as possible on the way and set Trump and his team up for failure or it simply cannot come to terms with the fact that a vast number of Americans were simply fed up with being broke and scared. The Department of Homeland Security has taken aim at the Laken Riley Act. The rationale? It would cost too much money to round up criminal aliens and then house them and feed them before deporting them.

Politico obtained a copy of a memo that DHS sent to Congress in December listing the department's complaints. According to the document, DHS is chiefly concerned with:

• A lack of beds: since ICE would have to arrest and immediately detain illegals accused or convicted of crimes, the number of detainees would quickly outstrip the available space. DHS maintains that without additional funding, at the end of the year, "tens of thousands" of illegals would need to be released, which may include the "potential release of pubic safety threats."  
• A shortage of Enforcement and Removal Officers (EROs): DHS says that over the last ten years, the workload has increased while the size of the workforce has remained "static." Without increased funding, "ERO's interior enforcement efforts would be significantly reduced."
• Apparently, we all just can't get along: DHS cites this excerpt from the bill: "Secretary of Homeland Security shall issue a detainer for an alien... and, if the alien is not otherwise detained by Federal State of local officials, shall effectively and expeditiously take custody of the alien." According to DHS, this process would be "complicated" by a potential lack of cooperation from partners at the state and local levels. This, says the agency, would mean that ERO would have to find and arrest illegals convicted or accused of property crimes. Thus, more "egregious offenders" may escape.

The original memo said that $14,799,526 would be needed for personnel and equipment simply to meet the mandates of the bill. DHS also claims that it would cost $3.2 billion to increase the detention capacity by over 60,000 beds. But wait, there's more.

NEW: Sources at DHS are telling me the cost of Laken Riley Act would be more like $20-30 billion, citing a $7 billion figure just for beds BEFORE the mandate's costs on local law enforcement. https://t.co/ZfMrNTvgJ9

— Pablo Manríquez (@PabloReports) January 12, 2025

The Laken Riley Act passed in the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate. Of note, 48 Democrats crossed the aisle to join all of the Republicans to vote for it while 159 Democrats voted against it.

Now might be a good time to remind Mayorkas and Co. that the reason this bill was needed was because he refused to do his job. Laken Riley and other victims were murdered because he refused to do his job. The reason Tren de Aragua took over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colo., is because he refused to do his job. The reason this problem is going to be so expensive to fix, presuming the numbers in the memo are legit, is because he refused to do his job. Mayokas and the Biden administration created a problem that they now say is too costly to address.