by Eric Lendrum
Outgoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is reportedly attempting to block passage of the bipartisan Laken Riley Act.
According to Breitbart, the report comes from independent reporter Pablo Manriquez, who said the DHS Secretary’s opposition to the bill is due to the fact that “sources at DHS” estimate the cost of the bill’s implementation to be between $20 billion and $30 billion.
The DHS sources, Manriquez claimed, cited “a $7 billion figure just for beds BEFORE the mandate’s costs on local law enforcement.” In order to accommodate the increase in detentions that would come as a result of the law’s crackdown on illegal aliens with criminal histories, DHS would require “billions of dollars and thousands more detention beds,” according to a report from Axios.
The Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was brutally murdered by an illegal alien last year, passed in the House of Representatives in early January, receiving strong bipartisan support. The bill must now pass the U.S. Senate before it can be signed into law by either outgoing President Joe Biden or incoming President-elect Donald Trump.
One Senate Democrat who has pledged to vote for the bill is Senator John Fetterman (D-Penn.), who declared in a post on X that the bill is necessary since “ICE reported tens of thousands of migrants with criminal records — homicide or sexual assault,” and another 425,000 illegals “have criminal records in total and should be deported.”
“I support a secure border. I support a legal path for Dreamers. I support the Laken Riley Act,” Fetterman concluded.
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Eric Lendrum reports for American Greatness.
