Scalise Signals ‘Very First Bill that President Donald Trump Gets to Sign’

Craig Bannister | January 14, 2025
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House-passed bills that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) refused to take up when he was Senate majority leader will have a vote now that Republicans hold the majority, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Tuesday, predicting which will be the first signed into law by incoming President Donald Trump.

During a press briefing, Leader Scalise highlighted some of the bills he expects to be reintroduced and passed in the House, then taken up in the Senate where Republicans have a slim majority.

The Laken Riley Act (H.R. 29), named after an Augusta University (Georgia) nursing student murdered by an illegal alien last year, is one such bill, Leader Scalise explained:

“Ultimately, if you look at what happened with the Laken Riley Act, [Congressman] Mike Collins' bill not only passed again this time with more Democrat support, so very bipartisan out of the House, as it was last Congress, but now we have a willing Senate, with Senator (John) Thune (R-S.D.) as the majority leader willing to bring the bill up.”

“That bill will likely be the very first bill that President Donald Trump gets to sign when he becomes the 47th President of the United States,” Scalise predicted.

In essence, the Laken Riley Act, sponsored by Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins, would do two things:

  • It would amend federal law to require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to issue detainers and take custody of illegal aliens who commit theft-related crimes, such as shoplifting, as defined by state and local law.
  • It allows state attorneys general to sue the Secretary of Homeland Security for injunctive relief if immigration actions such as parole, violation of detention requirements, or other policy failures harm that state or its citizens.

 

Despite his previous arrests, Riley’s killer, illegal alien Jose Ibarra, had not been placed into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), leaving him free to commit murder.

Last week, on January 8, the House passed the Laken Riley Act by a vote of 264-159, with 48 Democrats joining Republicans in support of the legislation.

The Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R. 7909) is another previously-blocked bill that Leader Scalise says will make its way to Trump’s desk. Reintroduced on January 3 by its sponsor, Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), the bill is expected to come up for a House vote this week.

Under the proposed bill:

  • Aliens convicted of sex offenses or domestic violence—or those who admit to such crimes—will be deemed inadmissible to the United States.
  • Any alien convicted of a sex offense or conspiracy to commit such an offense will face deportation.

 

“This legislation sends a clear message: predators and criminals will not find a safe haven in the United States,” Rep. Mace said in a press release announcing her reintroduction of the bill.

“We're going to stand up for what's right,” Scalise promised on Tuesday:

“We're going to bring [the Laken Riley Act] to the floor, just as we're going to bring Nancy Mace's bill that says, if somebody is here illegally, and they're also committing assault and violence against women, that that's a deportable offense.”

As with Collins’ bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to bring Mace’s bill up for a vote after it passed the House during the last Congress.

“I think we're going to see a different approach from this new Senate,” Leader Scalise predicted.