Newly elected US President Donald Trump has scored his first legislative victory since officially taking office in the Oval Office.

The bill in question is the Laken Riley bill, in which the administration instructs authorities to detain and deport illegal immigrants accused – without yet having been convicted – of certain crimes while they are in the country illegally.

What’s in the bill – The murder of a 22-year-old student to whom it owes its name

As reported in a New York Times op-ed, the Laken Riley Act lists specific crimes that could result in the detention and deportation of a person without permission to remain in the United States.

These include burglary, larceny, shoplifting, assaulting a police officer and any crime that results in death or bodily injury. The bill requires the detention of persons arrested, charged with, or admitting to committing such a crime without first being required to be convicted.

It also gives state attorneys general the right to sue the U.S. attorney general or the Secretary of Homeland Security if an immigrant with uncertain or questionable legal status who enters the country commits a crime that physically or financially harms either the state or one of its residents if the value of the harm exceeds $100.

The law is named after 22-year-old Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia, who was attacked and murdered while jogging one morning in February 2024.

The man who attacked her was Jose Antonio Ibara, a 26-year-old Venezuelan man who had entered the United States in 2022 without documentation and was sentenced to life in prison. Although he had been arrested before for theft, he had never been taken into custody.

The bill is a reminder of Donald Trump’s ultimate political priority, illegal immigration, with Republicans promising more measures to address the issue.