Sponsors (35)
Expands mandatory ICE detention categories for certain aliens charged with death/serious-injury crimes and requires ICE to notify victims/next-of-kin about identity, custody, status, and removal efforts.
Official title: Require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take into custody certain aliens who have been charged in the United States with a crime that resulted in the death or serious bodily injury of another person, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 14, 2025 by Joni Ernst · Last progress January 14, 2025
The bill strengthens victims' access to information and affirms victims' statutory rights—potentially improving safety and coordination—but does so by expanding mandatory detention and data sharing in ways that raise due-process, cost, privacy, and community-trust concerns.
Crime victims and next-of-kin (including parents and families) will receive timely notifications about an alleged offender’s identity, custody status, and removal efforts, and retain existing statutory victims' rights — improving victims' ability to stay informed and participate in proceedings.
Mandating detention for certain noncitizens charged with crimes causing death or serious bodily injury reduces the likelihood those alleged to have caused serious harm are released while immigration proceedings are pending, potentially improving public safety.
Requires ICE to obtain victim identity information from law enforcement, improving interagency coordination and supporting victim services and criminal prosecutions.
Mandating pretrial detention for noncitizens charged (but not convicted) raises significant liberty and due-process concerns, increasing the risk people will be held without a criminal conviction.
Expanding mandatory detention increases detention costs for taxpayers and raises operational burdens for ICE and local detention facilities.
Broader mandatory custody and enforcement could undermine trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement, deterring victim cooperation and reporting of crimes.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Expands who must be held in ICE custody by adding certain noncitizens charged with crimes that resulted in death or serious bodily injury to the mandatory-detention categories, and creates a new ICE duty to make reasonable efforts to obtain victim identity information and provide timely, ongoing notifications to victims or next-of-kin about the alien’s identity, immigration and criminal status, custody changes, and removal efforts. The bill also clarifies that nothing in the Act reduces or limits existing statutory crime-victim rights.