Trump to sign Laken Riley Act, setting up next phase of immigration crackdown
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(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump is set to sign the Laken Riley Act Wednesday afternoon as the president approves a series of initiatives meant to tackle his key goal of curbing illegal immigration.
The bill, which will symbolically be the first bill Trump signs in his second term, will require the detention of immigrants who lack legal status and are accused of crimes, including several misdemeanor offenses, with the potential for deportation — even before they are convicted.
The Republican wishlist item was passed with bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate and Trump campaigned heavily on curbing illegal immigration, using the death of Riley, a nursing student, as a centerpiece for immigration reform on the campaign trail.
“We will deport individuals based on the laws of this country. That’s all this administration is trying to do enforce our nation’s immigration laws,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
“So if an individual is here illegally, if that means they cross our southern border illegally or they are overstaying their visa illegally or they’ve been deported before and returned to the U.S. illegally, which we found in many instances, they will be subject to deportation,” she added.
Riley was killed by Jose Ibarra, an immigrant without legal status first arrested after in September 2022 on charges of illegal entry, outside Atlanta in February 2024. Her death fueled the immigration debate ahead of the 2024 elections.
Ibarra had been living in the U.S. illegally and had been arrested on misdemeanor shoplifting charges but was allowed to stay in the U.S. while his immigration case was ongoing. He was found guilty in Riley’s murder in late 2024 and is serving a life sentence without parole.
“That’s something that is a tribute to Laken, a beautiful young lady who was killed viciously by an illegal alien,” Trump said on Friday after the bill passed. “We passed a very powerful bill.”
Key in the legislation is that it will require that the Department of Homeland Security “expeditiously take custody” of immigrants without legal status who are charged with burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting or assault of a law enforcement officer, but not convicted.
Though several Democrats signed on to the legislation, many have argued the law is too extreme, with Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin saying the bill “authorizes the largest expansion of mandatory detention seen in decades for anyone even suspected or accused of shoplifting.”
“Not only is this incredibly cruel and inhumane, it is also contrary to our legal system’s bedrock principle that all individuals are innocent until proven guilty, and thereby wholly un-American,” she added in a statement, noting that the bill could lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers “to prioritize indefinitely detaining people accused of petty shoplifting instead of going after suspected terrorists and violent offenders that pose a more urgent threat to the safety of our communities.”
The law also allows attorneys general to sue the federal government if they can show states are being harmed by a failure to implement immigration policies and allows states to sue DHS for harm caused to citizens allegedly due to illegal immigration.
However, ICE has warned that enforcement of the bill will cost much more than the $3.2 billion initially expected — and could reach $27 billion in its first year, according to a document obtained by ABC News.
“Full implementation would be impossible for ICE to execute within existing resources,” the document noted, adding that ICE would need to expand its detention capacity to 151,500.
And that estimate from ICE only includes the Laken Riley Act, not other initiatives that are part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Trump also signed 10 executive orders targeted at curbing illegal immigration in his first week in office, and newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined an immigration enforcement operation in New York City that resulted in the apprehension of several migrants lacking legal status on Tuesday.
“One of my top priorities is achieving President Trump’s mandate from the American people to secure our southern border and fix our broken immigration system,” Noem said on Saturday following her confirmation. “The Trump administration will once-again empower our brave men and women in law enforcement to do their jobs and remove criminal aliens and illegal gangs from our country.”
ABC News’ Lauren Peller, Allison Pecorin and Armando Garcia contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Leading candidates for the Democratic National Committee chairperson election said Tuesday’s claim by front-runner Ken Martin that he has the support of 200 members is inflated and fails to paint an accurate picture of the dynamics of the race.
Chair candidates need a simple majority of DNC members, or 225 votes, to win. If it holds, Martin’s latest endorsement count would bring him close to victory on the first ballot.
The role of the chair, who guides fundraising, recruiting and organizing efforts for Democrats nationally, holds particular importance in years when the party is outside of the White House and lacks a de facto leader.
Whoever wins the election will have the responsibility of balancing messaging against the Trump presidency while looking to define and rebuild a party now marked by decisive losses in the executive branch and across both chambers of Congress.
Typically, presidents appoint their own chairs to lead the parties they represent.
Martin, the Minnesota Democratic Party chairman, announced his 200-member number in a statement Tuesday morning.
“I’m honored to have gained the support of leaders from across the country,” Martin said. “Our campaign is gaining momentum and we’re going to continue to work hard for people’s votes.”
The teams of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler claimed the dynamics of the race are far from locked.
In a statement to ABC News, Wikler’s spokesperson claimed Martin is inflating his whip count in an attempt to create “false momentum” and “lacks a clear path to victory.”
“Ken Martin is releasing inflated whip counts because his momentum in this race has stalled and he is seeking to create a false sense of momentum,” the spokesperson said. “Our internal count has Ben within 30 votes of Ken, with a surge in support since last week’s union endorsements. Ken has fewer votes than the combined support for Ben and Martin O’Malley and lacks a clear path to the majority.”
O’Malley’s team swiped at Martin, claiming that the 200 figure is inflated and unsubstantiated. Pushing further than Wikler’s team, O’Malley spokesman Chris Taylor told ABC News that “not a single soul” believes Martin, who he asserted is acting “beneath the seriousness of this moment.”
“This race isn’t about inflated and unsubstantiated numbers or tricks and gimmicks,” Taylor said in a statement. “It’s about making the changes we need to win and rebuilding the Democratic Party for the future of our Republic. There is not a single soul running for any DNC office who believes Ken Martin’s count. It’s disrespectful to the 448 voting members of the DNC — many of whom are still making up their minds — and beneath the seriousness of this moment.”
In their statements, O’Malley’s and Wikler’s teams both pointed to their internal numbers, which they said show a much closer race. None of the leading candidates have provided a full list of names of their supporters. O’Malley’s team said it has commitments from 100 members. Wikler’s team declined to offer its internal count.
Even still, public endorsements for Martin seem to outnumber all others.
Over the past few weeks, Martin’s campaign has been rolling out daily endorsements on social media. His bid boasts the support of at least 50 current state party chairs and vice chairs, including party leaders from swing-states Arizona, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, and several members of Congress, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, as well as leaders of the Young Democrats of America.
Wikler has the support from one of the highest-ranking Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and rubber stamps from both centrist and progressive organizations within the party. Last week, Wikler won the support of four powerful public sector unions, including the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
O’Malley has also been rolling out endorsements from individual members, including current and former members of the Congressional Black Caucus, alongside former mayors.
The DNC has been hosting forums that function as debates between candidates for all officer positions. There are two left, one this week and one next week, a few days before the officer elections on Feb. 1.
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(WASHINGTON) — Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president known as a champion of international human rights both during and after his White House tenure and who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his lifetime of dedication to that cause, has died at 100, ABC News has learned.
Carter’s death was also announced by the Carter Center on X, which posted “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia.”
Carter, whose wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96, is survived by the couple’s children — John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip) and Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff); and their daughter, Amy Lynn.
Carter had endured several health challenges in recent years. In 2019, he underwent surgery after breaking his hip in a fall. Four years earlier, Carter was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain, though just months later, he announced that he no longer needed treatment due to a new type of cancer therapy he’d been receiving.
In February of 2023, the Carter Center, the organization founded by the former president to promote human rights worldwide, announced that Carter, with “the full support of his family and his medical team,” would begin receiving hospice care at home.
“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center said in a statement.
Carter attended the public memorial service for his late wife on Nov. 28, 2023, some nine months after the announcement that he’d entered hospice care. Frail and in a wheelchair, he didn’t speak at the memorial. Instead, his daughter, Amy, spoke on his behalf, reading from a letter Carter sent to Rosalynn some 75 years earlier, when he was away serving in the Navy.
“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are,” the letter read, in part. “While I am away, I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be, as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again.”
Carter turned 100 years old on Oct. 1, 2024, an occasion that was celebrated with events both at the Carter Center in Atlanta, and in Carter’s Plains, Georgia hometown, though Carter himself was by that time too frail to attend them. Just 16 days later, the Carter Center announced that the former president had cast his ballot by mail in the presidential election. Carter’s grandson, Jason, previously told ABC News that his grandfather would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The son of a Georgia peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter first appeared on the national political scene in 1976 with a toothy grin and the simple words that would become his trademark: “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”
Among his administration’s most notable achievements were the Camp David Accords, which Carter brokered between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978, and that led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty the following year. Carter’s time in office also saw the first efforts toward developing a U.S. policy for energy independence.
However, the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for a total 444 days, beginning Nov. 4, 1979, battered Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign. He won just six states and the District of Columbia, for a total of 49 electoral votes compared to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan’s 489 electoral votes. Reagan also defeated Carter by more than eight million ballots in the popular vote.
Though political pundits of the era predicted he would be remembered as an average, one-term president, it’s often been observed that Carter’s reputation became more distinguished after he left the White House. He continued to champion international human rights and peace efforts, prompting Time magazine to declare in 1989, just eight years after the end of his presidency, that Carter “may be the best former president America has ever had.”
Carter “redefined the meaning and purpose of the modern ex-presidency,” Time wrote. “While Reagan peddles his time and talents to the highest bidder and Gerald Ford perfects his putt, Carter, like some jazzed superhero, circles the globe at 30,000 feet, seeking opportunities to Do Good.”
Carter was the third U.S. president, following Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 2002 after creating the Carter Center. Barack Obama became the fourth, in 2009. In selecting Carter for the honor, the Nobel Committee cited “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Peanut farmer to politician
James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Georgia, on Oct. 1, 1924, to James Earl Carter Sr., a peanut farmer and businessman, and Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse who famously became known as ‘Miss Lillian.’ Though he was the first American president born in a hospital, Carter was raised in a farmhouse without indoor plumbing or electricity.
Carter graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1946 and after spending seven years as an officer — he volunteered for submarine duty and was honorably discharged in 1953 — he returned to farming. He began his political career in 1962 when he was elected to the first of two terms as a state senator in Georgia. During his tenure, he promised to read every bill that came to a vote, even taking a speed-reading class to keep up.
After an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1966, Carter fell into a spiritual crisis, emerging as a born-again Christian. He later recalled this period as one that changed his life dramatically, saying on the campaign trail: “Since then, I’ve had an inner peace and inner conviction and assurance that transformed my life for the better.”
Armed with this renewed energy, Carter launched an aggressive gubernatorial campaign and won the office in 1970.
Carter announced his bid for the presidency in December 1974 as his term as governor of Georgia was ending. A relative unknown, Carter won early victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He became more well-known as he steadily picked up delegates and beat back challenges from Rep. Morris ‘Mo’ Udall and U.S. Sen. Henry M. Jackson to secure the nomination.
The deeply religious candidate caused controversy late in his campaign when he told an interviewer from Playboy magazine, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” While there was considerable criticism of that line and some of the other language Carter used in the interview, then-U.S. Rep. Andrew Young, whom Carter later appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carter had “taken care of his religion problem once and for all.”
In November 1976, Carter defeated President Gerald Ford with 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 241 to become the 39th president.
Energy and economy
From the moment of his inauguration, Carter set a different tone in Washington. He avoided formality, taking the oath of office as ‘Jimmy’ instead of ‘James Earl’ Carter. He and the first lady even walked the mile-and-a-half inaugural parade route to the White House, rather than ride in a limousine.
Once in the Oval Office, Carter continued to bring a common touch to the presidency. He discontinued limousine service for presidential staff and even personally controlled the schedule of the White House tennis courts. As America weathered an energy crisis, Carter ordered his staff to turn the White House thermostats down in the winter and up in the summer, an energy-conscious practice he continued throughout his public career.
Focus on foreign policy
Carter struggled with domestic policies, fighting near-record highs in inflation and unemployment. Among his few victories was the establishment of the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, the latter in response to a continued energy shortage at the time.
Yet, while his domestic policies drew criticism, Carter found widespread success in foreign affairs. His administration attracted worldwide praise for distinguishing itself with a firm commitment to international human rights. Unlike his predecessors, Carter did not hesitate to criticize repressive right-wing regimes, saying in a 1977 commencement speech at Notre Dame, “Because we know that democracy works, we can reject the arguments of those rulers who deny human rights to their people.”
The Iran Hostage Crisis and the end of an administration
The largest stain on Carter’s foreign policy record came in November 1979, when a group of Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostage 52 American citizens. The militants demanded the return to Iran of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from the U.S., where he was seeking medical attention, to stand trial.
Carter initially responded to the crisis by cutting diplomatic ties with Iran and blocking imports from the country. But when those measures failed, in April 1980, he ordered a secret armed rescue mission. It ended in disaster when several American helicopters malfunctioned and two aircraft collided, killing eight U.S. servicemen.
The hostages were freed Jan. 20, 1980, after 444 days in captivity. Perhaps as a final insult to Carter, Iran released the hostages just minutes after President Ronald Reagan had been sworn in. The new president sent Carter to Germany to greet the hostages.
Post-presidency legacy of public service
It wasn’t until years after he left the White House that many came to appreciate Carter. The former president embarked on a new phase of his career in public service, devoting his days to peacemaking and humanitarian efforts.
“He has made the post-presidency an institution that it had never been before,” said historian and author Steve Hochman, who helped establish the Carter Center. “He has been the most successful, most influential former president in American history.”
Among the organization’s many efforts, the Carter Center helped spearhead a successful campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasitic infection spread by drinking water contaminated with the worm’s larvae. In 1986, the disease affected 3.5 million people per year in 21 African countries, but by 2017, it had been reduced by 99.99%, to just 30 cases, according to the Carter Center.
Carter told ABC News in 2015 that his goal was to eradicate the disease entirely. “I think this is going to be a great achievement for — not for me — but for the people that have been afflicted and for the entire world to see diseases like this eradicated,” Carter said.
Carter also became the highest-profile supporter of Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit devoted to creating affordable housing. The Carters personally helped to build, renovate and repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries, according to the organization, which also called Carter and wife Rosalynn “two of the world’s most distinguished humanitarians.”
Guided by ‘deep Christian faith’
In addition to his extensive humanitarian work, Carter wrote more than two dozen books after leaving the White House, including “Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President” (1982), “An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of My Rural Boyhood” (2001), “The Personal Beliefs of Jimmy Carter” (2002), and “Faith: A Journey for All,” (2018). He also wrote poetry collections, as well as a fictional work about the Revolutionary War, titled “The Hornet’s Nest” (2003).
Carter referenced his Christian faith in the opening lines of his presidential inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1977, quoting the biblical Old Testament call “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
Carter’s faith and seemingly limitless energy manifested themselves as he taught at his church’s Sunday school in his Plains, Georgia hometown, where congregants lined up to attend. He was also known for walking the length of every plane on which he traveled – he always flew commercial – to shake hands with every passenger.
Yet behind Carter’s easygoing Southern manner was an iron will and inexhaustible determination. Biographer Douglas Brinkley recalled the 39th president as “a kind of military man” who never seemed to get tired.
“I mean,” Brinkley noted, “the Secret Service nickname for him was ‘Dasher’ because he could move around so much.”
Jimmy Carter’s commitment to the principles that defined his life was, again, expressed in his presidential inaugural address: “Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved,” Carter declared. “The powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.”
ABC News’ Patricio Chile and Christopher Watson contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R- Minn., said that he plans to work to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda despite House Republicans’ very slim majority.
“We’re going to get the Trump agenda put in place,” Emmer told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “Donald Trump got a mandate on November 5. The public expects us to deal with the excessive spending, the debt, the deficit that has driven double-digit inflation at the beginning of the Biden term, they’ve asked Donald Trump to seal the southern border, and they want peace and stability around the globe.”
Trump has pushed to achieve his legislative goals in “one big beautiful bill” that would address many of his priorities, including tax cuts and securing the southern border, but a wide-ranging bill could be difficult to sell to fiscal hawks in the Senate and the House. The opposition to that approach caused Trump to backtrack and say he’d be willing to consider multiple bills. Emmer said that he is open to either approach.
“That’s not a concern to me once we make the decision. Is it going to be one? Is it going to be two? Doesn’t matter. The whip’s job is to make sure that we execute once that decision has been made, and I love people who tell us that we can’t do something,” Emmer said. “I mean, when we didn’t have the White House and we didn’t have the Senate, we did things that Republican majorities had never been able to do in the previous 10 to 15 years.”
Asked if Republicans are engaging with Democrats on trying to get their support on dealing with the debt ceiling, which Trump has pushed to raise or even eliminate, Emmer said some GOP hardliners could be brought around “under the right circumstances.”
“The issue that Republicans have had, and I think that Donald Trump has, is the debt ceiling is a false number. The bottom line is, you got to get your spending under control, and you got to have a plan to pay off the debt. So as long as we’re doing that, don’t underestimate what the House Republicans can do,” Emmer said.
President Joe Biden promised that 100% of initial emergency funding for the wildfires in the Los Angeles area would be covered by the federal government and called for Congress to provide California with whatever it needs to recover. Asked for a sense of what that might take, Emmer said that it’s too early to tell.
“Well, right now we don’t know what’s going to be needed. We know it’s significant. What we do know is that Congress, in December, before we left, the 118th Congress, passed the American Relief Act, which provided billions of dollars to FEMA to not only deal with the pre the hurricanes Milton and Helene, but also for situations such as this, although no one could predict what’s happening right now in LA,” said Emmer.
Asked about his relationship with Trump, who was critical of Emmer last year when he was considered for House speaker as being “totally out of touch” with Republican voters, Emmer said he and the president-elect are on “good terms.”
“The president has been wonderful to me, been wonderful to my wife. Has done everything that he could to campaign in Minnesota. He’s been amazing,” Emmer said. “We’re going to do some good work together, but it’s Donald J. Trump’s agenda. My job is to make sure that we execute.”
