Senate immigration bill aims to overturn Supreme Court precedent in a sea change for legal system, experts say

Anti-immigrant state officials and federal judges would have new power to dictate immigration enforcement– including whether to detain individual migrants - under a GOP bill that has passed the House and is moving forward in the Senate with bipartisan support.

Anti-immigrant state officials and federal judges would have new power to dictate immigration enforcement — including whether to detain individual migrants — under a GOP bill that has passed the House and is moving forward in the Senate with bipartisan support. The Laken Riley Act aims to overturn Supreme Court precedent and give states such as Texas the ability to bring the types of immigration lawsuits against the federal government that have been rejected by the courts, including conservative judges, legal experts say. But it would go further, also authorizing state attorneys general to sue to overturn the decisions to release individual immigrants — and even to obtain wide-reaching sanctions on a foreign country for refusing to accept a national eligible for removal. With Democrats eager to show that they were pivoting on an issue that cost them in the 2024 election, the bill has passed the House and easily cleared its first procedural hurdle on the Senate floor, with just nine senators voting against that step Thursday. But giving states new authorities to sue is emerging as a flashpoint for some Democrats, who want changes before a final vote. “I don’t think we want the entire immigration system being litigated in district courts all across the country,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told reporters last week. Republicans will likely need the votes of seven Democrats for final approval; 33 members of the Democratic caucus voted in favor of advancing it to the next procedural step. The bill would give state attorneys general multiple ways to intervene in how the federal government is carrying out immigration law.