Laken Riley Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I will take a minute to talk a little bit about the journey of this bill. When this tragedy happened and we took a look at what possibly could be done to make sure that this doesn't happen again, I talked with the family and asked them if we could put Laken Riley's name on it.

Their response was: Congressman, if there is anything that Congress can do to make sure that this doesn't happen to another family, then please put her name on it and get this thing passed.

Mr. Speaker, and that we did. Thirty-seven Democrats with all Republicans in the House passed that bill in the 118th Congress. We sent it over to the Senate and where so many of the other good bills went, it fell into the black hole of the Senate never to be seen again.

I had another discussion with the family later and told them where the bill was sitting and what was going on. I told them that I can never let it go. I just couldn't let this go because Laken fought with every ounce in her body to stay alive that day. I vowed I would fight with every ounce I had to make sure that we protected families across this country, and that we did.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the family for allowing us to do that. I also thank my colleagues for sticking in here and voting with us, not just the Republicans but the Democrats, people on the other side of the aisle and not just in the House, it went through the Senate. We had Senate Democrats that went with this bill, as well.

This is a good bill. It is a commonsense, law enforcement bill. It simply states that for minor-level crime local law enforcement can contact ICE to get these people detained, processed, and deported. These people, these criminals that come across and inflict violence on American families, they just get more and more emboldened.

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Mr. COLLINS. They commit larger and more heinous crimes, and that is exactly what happened here in the Laken Riley murder.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to get this passed today. Let's get this done. I will leave you with one other thought, too. I have always heard a saying that there is nothing with any meaningful legislation that happens up here in this town until the American people demand it, and by God, they are demanding this get passed and we get these criminals out of our country.

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