WASHINGTON – The Republican-led House of Representatives on Tuesday passed its first bill of the new Congress – a tough border measure named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student whose murder last year by an immigrant in the country illegally became a flashpoint in the country 2024 presidential campaign.

The 264-159 vote to pass the Laken-Riley Act puts pressure on Senate Democrats to support the legislation, while Republicans, who now control the upper house, will pass it for the first time on Friday, what would have been Riley’s 23rd birthday submit a vote.

All 52 Republicans in the Senate jointly support the bill, as does Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. That means Republicans need seven more Democrats in the Senate to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

“We welcome with open arms any Democrat who wants to help us solve these problems because the American people demand and deserve it. It’s overdue,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters before the vote.

In November, Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan citizen who was in the United States illegally, was found guilty of kidnapping, assaulting and murdering Riley as she jogged near the University of Georgia campus in Athens . Ibarra was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

When Trump campaigned with Riley’s family members in Georgia, he took up the issue and blamed President Joe Biden’s immigration policies for her murder. Trump’s congressional allies emphasized that Ibarra had been reported by a local police department in Georgia for shoplifting, but that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had not issued a detainer for Ibarra and he had not been taken into custody.

The bill, authored by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., would amend federal law to require ICE, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, to issue detainers and illegally detain people in the country who commit theft crimes, including shoplifting.

“We are going to arrest and deport illegal aliens who commit burglaries, larcenies, thefts, shoplifting and certainly cruel and violent crimes, and I can’t believe anyone would be against that,” Johnson said.

Last March, the House passed the Laken Riley Act by a vote of 251-170, with 37 Democrats — most representing swing districts or running for statewide office — joining all Republicans in voting “yes.” Democrats who supported the measure included then-Representatives. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both of whom won election to the Senate in November. The Senate, then controlled by Democrats, did not take up the bill in the last Congress.

This time, more House Democrats voted for the Laken Riley Act: 48 of them joined all Republicans present and voted yes.

Senate Majority Leader John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Tuesday that Democrats in his chamber, including Georgia’s two moderates, will be under enormous pressure to support the bill.

“People have to make a decision. It is now a bipartisan bill; Fetterman has now signed,” Barrasso said, noting that Gallego and Slotkin are already on the record supporting the bill.

“And we’ll see what the Georgia senators do too. “This happened in Georgia,” he said. “And Friday, the day of the vote here in the Senate, is actually Laken Riley’s birthday.”

Senate Democrats planned to discuss the bill during their weekly lunch on Tuesday, according to Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. However, he said he believes the legislation would complicate current immigration law.

“I just don’t think it’s a good bill. “I think it’s going to make the immigration system as it stands much, much, much more complicated, more byzantine and more confusing because it gives state attorneys general the new right to litigate detention cases in court,” Murphy said Tuesday.

“It’s just not a well-thought-out law,” he said.