WASHINGTON, JAN. 22, 2025 — Today, the House voted in the final step for passing S. 5, legislation that will have devastating implications for many immigrants in the United States and our system of legal immigration alike.  

The bill eliminates due process for many immigrants, including some who have been living and working legally in the U.S. for years. Under this law, they would be placed in indefinite detention if accused—not convicted—of low-level crimes like shoplifting. That could include children who are mistakenly arrested and accused of crimes they did not commit. 

“This bill does nothing to improve safety or fix our broken immigration system. Under the guise of preventing violence, the bill forces immigration officers to indefinitely detain and deport non-citizens who pose no public safety risk, without access to basic due process. The bill also gives state attorneys general unprecedented power over immigration policy. The bill strips people of their basic rights and upends how the U.S. government enforces immigration law,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council.  

Additionally, because the bill mandates automatic detention for undocumented people and other non-citizens accused of low-level crimes, federal agencies will be forced to divert their limited resources away from enforcing immigration law against non-citizens who may pose an actual public safety threat due to more serious criminal records.   

“This legislation does nothing to make Americans safer. It hinders the ability of our federal agencies to use limited resources in a targeted and effective manner as they enforce U.S. civil immigration laws,” said Gupta. 

The bill also places immense power in the hands of states to dictate federal immigration policy by allowing them to sue the federal government to force specific action. This could lead to alarming scenarios in which an individual federal court orders the federal government to make specific decisions, from keeping a person detained or banning visas for entire nations, as American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted in a recent op-ed published by MSNBC.   

“Congress just approved a bill that upends our federal government’s ability to enforce immigration law and puts it into the hands of state attorneys general across the country,” said Reichlin Melnick. “This will throw our immigration system deeper into chaos, with 50 states and hundreds of courts vying to dictate what the law should be.”  

This legislation coupled with recent executive actions by the Trump administration will have devastating consequences not just for immigrants, but for the safety and quality of life of all Americans, the American Immigration Council said.  

“When our political leaders acquiesce to a cruel vision for mass family separation and deportation, this has harmful consequences for all Americans, because it makes our communities less safe, undercuts our economy, and distracts from commonsense solutions for our broken immigration system,” said Jeremy Robbins, director of the American Immigration Council.