(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan Lake Riley Act Wednesday, but Minnesota’s two U.S. Senators, Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, voted against the measure.
The Laken Riley Act empowers the Department of Homeland Security to detain and deport any foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally who are accused of theft-related crimes, assaulting law enforcement officers, or committing acts that cause serious injury or death.
The U.S. Senate passed the Laken Riley Act 64-35 last week, with 12 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with all Republicans in supporting the measure.
Smith and Klobuchar did not respond to requests for comment on why they voted against the measure. Some Democrats who opposed the bill said it violates due process laws by applying mandatory detention statutes on people who are only charged with, and not convicted of, committing crimes.
Polling from Napolitan News Service showed that 81% of American voters “support the key provision of the Laken-Riley Act: requiring immigration authorities to take custody of any illegal immigrant who commits a theft-related crime.” The same polls shows that 60% of voters believe deporting those who commit non-violent crimes will make America safer.
Several high-profile violent crimes and arrests tied to illegal immigrants have occurred in Minnesota in recent years.
In January 2024, Alonzo Pierre Mingo was arrested an charged with three counts of second-degree murder with intent for the deaths of Shannon Patricia Jungwirth, her 20-year-old son Jorge Alexander Reyes-Jungwirth, and her husband Mario Alberto Trejo Estrada, Fox News reported. They were shot in the head in their home in front of the couple’s 2- and 4-year-old children in an apparent drug-related incident, Fox News reported. Mingo had a prior conviction in 2020 in Minnesota for felony gun possession, as well as convictions in Illinois for aggravated battery and weapons charges. He had previously been detained by ICE at Fort Snelling.
In January 2024, ICE arrested a member of Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab in Minneapolis just 48 hours after discovering he was on the terrorist watchlist, the Daily Caller reported. He previously was arrested in March 2023 for attempting to illegally cross the southern U.S. border “but was subsequently released into the U.S. because the Terrorist Screening Center ‘deemed him a ‘mismatch” when his name was run against the terror watchlist,” per an internal ICE memo, the Daily Caller reported.
In 2021, A Cuban national was charged with second-degree murder for allegedly beheading a 55-year-old woman with a machete in a car in a residential intersection in Shakopee, Minn.. The Cuban national was in the U.S. illegally and had an extensive criminal history including domestic abuse, arson, among other charges, Alpha News reported.
