The Senate on Monday approved a bill that would mandate detentions and potential deportations for undocumented migrants charged with certain crimes, setting it on a glide path to clear Congress this week and be signed by President Trump.
In a vote of 64 to 35 just hours after Mr. Trump was sworn in, 12 Democrats joined Republicans to approve the bill, reflecting a growing bipartisan consensus around clamping down on those who have entered the country without authorization.
That sent the measure back to the House, which passed it with bipartisan support this month and is expected to give it final approval this week. It all but guaranteed that the legislation would be quickly signed by Mr. Trump, who on Monday began his promised immigration crackdown as he started his second term.
The bill, called the Laken Riley Act, is named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was killed last year by a migrant who crossed into the United States illegally from Venezuela and who had previously been arrested in a shoplifting case, but had not been detained.
Passage in the Senate came after Republicans and Democrats spent last week debating changes to the bill, a process that exposed deep divisions among Democrats over immigration as some in the party move to the right following their party’s electoral losses in November. The bill was the opening legislative move for Republicans in a broader push to crack down on immigration and significantly step up deportations, a promise that Mr. Trump made a centerpiece of his campaign.
The legislation instructs federal officials to detain unauthorized immigrants arrested for or charged with burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting, expanding the list of charges that would subject migrants to detention and potential deportation. Senators added assaulting a police officer and crimes that result in death or serious bodily injury to the expanded list.
Republicans teed up the measure as the first of several border bills they hope to revive and enact now that they have cemented their governing trifecta with Mr. Trump’s inauguration. A similar measure passed the House last year but died when the Democratic-led Senate declined to take it up.
The G.O.P. also wants to resurrect measures to increase deportations, hold asylum seekers outside the United States and strip federal funding from cities that restrict their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
“Today, we honor Laken,” Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, the lead co-sponsor of the bill, said on the Senate floor before the vote. “Now is the time to return to common sense. Now is the time to return to law and order. We are a proud nation of immigrants. We are also a nation of laws. And the lawlessness ends today.”
The bill’s journey through the Senate laid bare fissures among Democrats about how to position themselves on immigration, and foreshadowed the immense challenge of maintaining unity on a pressing topic that Mr. Trump has made his signature issue.
Some Democrats raised grave concerns about the bill, arguing that it would undermine due process rights for migrants who had not yet been convicted of crimes. They also said it would waste limited resources that federal immigration enforcement agencies could use to apprehend people who have committed more serious, violent offenses.
“It’s clear to almost everybody today that our system isn’t built for today’s conditions,” Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, said on the Senate floor Monday night shortly before voting against the bill. “We need to fix it, and we need to give the American people confidence that we have a fair and secure system in place.”
But he maintained that the legislation was “not targeted enough,” saying, “It strips law enforcement of their ability to make their best judgment about whom to arrest and not arrest, whom to detain and not detain, and how to focus their precious resources on how to protect our public safety.”
For instance, he said, the legislation could lead to the detention of an undocumented immigrant child accused of a nonviolent crime like shoplifting a candy bar, rather than devoting limited resources to locking up violent criminals. Republicans blocked a proposal by Mr. Bennet that would have added carve-outs for people who were brought to the country illegally as children, or those under the age of 16.
Still, several Democratic senators, including some who are facing re-election in 2026 or represent states that Mr. Trump carried, backed the bill. Among the 12 who voted in favor on Monday were Senators Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Gary Peters of Michigan, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Warner of Virginia, who will all face voters next year. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, whose states Mr. Trump carried in November, also voted to advance the measure, as did Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.
The bill would also give state attorneys general the right to sue the attorney general of the United States or the homeland security secretary if an immigrant who entered the country illegally went on to commit a crime that harms the state or any of its residents.
Immigration advocates have denounced the provision as a covert attempt to let conservative governors and state attorneys general dictate federal migrant detention policies. Republicans last week killed an amendment proposed by Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, that would have stripped the section from the bill.
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