On Jan. 29, 2025, the president signed the Laken Riley Act. The new law expands mandatory detention to include that of noncitizens arrested for, charged with, or convicted of certain crimes, including burglary, larceny, theft, shoplifting, assaulting a police officer, and any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury. However, the law only applies to those people who entered illegally or committed immigration fraud. The law does not apply to those who have been previously legally admitted to the United States.
The scary part about this new law is it only requires the person to be arrested for or charged with the crime, no conviction is required. Therefore, even if the person was falsely accused of shoplifting and was not convicted, immigration officers are still required to detain the noncitizen and keep them in jail until they finish their removal case. No bond is available.
The law also gives state attorneys general the right to sue the federal government for alleged violations of the mandatory detention provisions where the noncitizens in those cases have allegedly committed crimes that either harm the states or their residents physically or financially, if the value of the harm is more than $100. States have a similar right to sue in cases where they allege the federal government failed to terminate the visas of noncitizens who have allegedly committed crimes, harming the states or their residents.