It is highly significant that the first bill signed into law by President Donald Trump was the Laken Riley Act.
It passed both the House and the Senate with bipartisan support. Trump signed the bill Wednesday.
The new law, named after Laken Riley, who was murdered by a criminal illegal immigrant, will enhance and expand the government’s ability to arrest and deport criminal illegal immigrants, a top priority of the Trump administration.
Riley, 22, a Georgia nursing student, was out for a run in February 2024 when she was brutally attacked and murdered by Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, who had previously been arrested and released for illegal entry, for child endangerment and for shoplifting.
Her family was on hand for the moving signing ceremony at the White House.
Had the Laken Riley Act been in effect, Ibarra, who is serving a life sentence, would have previously been deported and Laken Riley would be alive. He would be back committing crimes in Venezuela.
That is because the bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to arrest and deport illegal immigrants for burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting and other crimes.
The Republican supported bill passed the House on a 263-156 vote with 46 Democrats voting for it. It was approved in the Senate on a 64-35 vote with 12 Democrats voting in favor.
It is also significant to note that the entire Democrat Massachusetts delegation to Congress, with one exception, voted against it, even though ICE agents are arresting and deporting vicious immigrant criminals in their own back yard.
That lone vote in favor of the bill came from U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch of South Boston.
The eight other Democrat members of the House, all progressives, who voted against the bill are: Reps. Richard Neal of Springfield, James McGovern of Worcester, Lori Trahan of Westford, Jake Auchincloss of Newton, Katherine Clark of Revere, Seth Moulton of Salem, Ayanna Pressley of Boston and William Keating of Bourne.
In the Senate, both Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Eddie Markey also voted against the bill.
Their vote, in effect, was to protect the “rights’ of criminal illegal immigrants over the rights of the citizens they are supposed to protect. It is one small but important reason why Trump won the last election and why Kamala Harris and the Democrats lost.
So, it is no wonder that none of them were invited to the bill signing, or had much, if anything, to say about their vote.
The Massachusetts contingent voted as though Joe Biden were president and still waving millions of illegal immigrants into the country.
Trump was elected because he campaigned on securing the border and deporting the criminals who invaded the country during Biden’s open border policy.
If there is any doubt about the popularity of Trump and his deportation policy, all the Massachusetts members of Congress need do is to drop by to some random bar and watch the evening television news.
They will see patrons cheer as ICE agents are shown arresting and cuffing illegal immigrant criminals in Boston, Chicago and New York wanted for murder, child rape, assault, robbery, drugs, guns and so on, and then throwing them out of the country.
They cheer even more when pictures are shown of those big, beautiful U.S. Army C-17 and C130 transport planes packed with illegal immigrant criminals being flown out of the country to Guatemala and elsewhere.
Trump is doing what a president is supposed to do, and that is protecting the American people.
And the general feeling among the public is one of relief and thanks because finally the government is listening to them.
It is too bad the politicians from Massachusetts are not, and instead are still blindly following the failed immigration policies of Joe Biden that created the vicious illegal immigrant crime wave in the first place.
None of this brings Laken Riley back, but it just might protect the next Laken Riley.
Massachusetts politicians need to read the room.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
