# Laken Riley Act **Status: stub — expand.** The **Laken Riley Act** (Pub. L. 119-1), signed January 29, 2025, was the first bill of the 119th Congress and of the second Trump term. Named for a Georgia nursing student killed in February 2024 by a Venezuelan man who had been released after a shoplifting arrest, it amended 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c) to require mandatory detention — no bond hearing — of any inadmissible noncitizen who is **arrested for, charged with, or convicted of** theft, burglary, larceny, shoplifting, or assault on a law-enforcement officer. The operative change is the word "arrested": a conviction is no longer required. A second title gives state attorneys general standing to sue the federal government over immigration-enforcement decisions that harm the state. DHS reported 17,500 detentions under the Act in its first year (January 29, 2026). On the [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]] it is the criminal-custody door in Stage 1 and the mandatory-detention branch of Stage 4. ## See also - [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]] · [[ICE]] · [[US Immigration Timeline]]