House GOP scores another immigration victory
But Democrats say the bill, which more than 60 of their colleagues voted for, would have potential consequences it would have on survivors of domestic violence.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill. The future of TikTok is still up in the air three days before its owner is required to sell it or face a ban on US app stores. The presidential inauguration is in four days and it looks like it will be a frigid affair. President-elect Donald Trump has undoubtedly been monitoring his cabinet nominees’ confirmation hearings, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whom he’s tapped to be Secretary of State.
Rubio is expected to be one of the few nominees to breeze through the confirmation vote, opening up his seat. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, announced this morning that he will appoint Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and a close Trump ally to replace Rubio.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has yet to announce his appointment to succeed Vice President-elect JD Vance in the Senate. In other vice presidential news, Kamala Harris added her name to the desk drawer in her ceremonial office this afternoon, becoming the first woman to do so.
Finally, in yesterday’s newsletter, I reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) received an award from the National Action Network at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast. Prior to publication, I contacted Jeffries’ office for the name of the award but didn’t hear back by press time. A spokesperson later told me it was the Lifetime Achievement in Public Service and Excellence Award.
In this evening’s edition: News and notes on what’s next for the Laken Riley Act and President Joe Biden’s sobering farewell address.
But let’s start with the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, a bill the House passed this morning to require that undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of sex offenses or domestic violence be deported or blocked from admission to the country.
61 Democrats from a broad cross-section of the caucus, including those who represent safe seats and frontline districts, joined all 213 voting Republicans in the latest example of elected Democrats moving to the center on immigration. This issue defined the 2024 election and is expected to shape President-elect Donald Trump’s second term. 145 Democrats opposed the measure.
The bill, led by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), will now move to the Senate for consideration.
House Republicans characterized the bill as a necessary step to reverse the Biden administration’s immigration policies, which GOP members argue have made it harder to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants who commit crimes in American communities.
“This commonsense solution should be an overwhelmingly bipartisan effort,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement after the vote. “But the American people must know only 28 percent of House Democrats voted to protect women from these predators.”
Specifically, the bill introduces new rules for denying entry to non-U.S. citizens and expands the list of crimes that can lead to deportation. Non-U.S. citizens may be barred from entering the country if they admit to or are convicted of crimes such as stalking, child abuse, child neglect, child abandonment, sex offenses (or planning such crimes), violating protection orders, or domestic violence, which is defined to include physical or sexual abuse and patterns of controlling or coercive behavior within certain close relationships.
The bill, which amends the Immigration and Nationality Act, a 1952 law that governs U.S. immigration and citizenship, also broadens the grounds for deportation by including any sex offense, including those involving minors, or conspiring to commit such offenses. Additionally, it expands domestic violence-related crimes that can lead to deportation to cover physical or sexual abuse and patterns of controlling behavior in close relationships.
But the majority of House Democrats who voted against the measure did so because of the potential consequences it would have on survivors of domestic violence. They argued it unfairly targets victims who acted in self-defense or were wrongly accused, putting their legal status at risk. The fear of deportation could discourage immigrants from reporting crimes of domestic violence.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) called the bill a harmful and unnecessary measure that exploits existing immigration laws to destabilize communities.
“H.R. 30 is a harmful and unnecessary measure that exploits immigration laws to further destabilize our communities,” Espaillat, the first Dominican American and first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress, said about the bill. “We must focus on protecting victims, not punishing them.”
The bill is the third focused on women and girls the House has considered in the first two weeks of the new Congress.
House Republican leadership has front-loaded the schedule with several bills that unify their base, force Democrats into tough votes and enliven the culture-war issues that, besides the economy and inflation, dominated the campaign last year.
The House passed the Laken Riley Act, a measure that would require the federal government to detain undocumented immigrants who have been charged with theft in the US after the bill’s namesake was murdered last February while she was jogging at the University of Georgia by a 26-year-old Venezuelan man who had unlawfully entered the country and previously been arrested on theft and shoplifting charges.
Earlier this week, the House passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would transgender girls from sports teams that align with their gender identity.
Senate set to clear final procedural hurdle on Laken Riley Act
The Senate is expected to vote on Friday morning to end debate on the Laken Riley Act, setting up a vote for its final passage early next week.
It adopted an amendment to the bill on Wednesday evening that guarantees the House will have to reconsider it before President-elect Biden could sign it into law.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) proposed the amendment, which would make assaulting a law enforcement officer a deportable offense. 21 Democrats and all 49 voting Republicans agreed to adopt it.
The Senate voted on a separate amendment introduced by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) to strike a provision that would allow state attorneys general to sue the federal government for perceived violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It was rejected by a 46-49 vote, split straight along party lines.
78 amendments to the bill were submitted for consideration. Several of the more than 30 Senate Democrats who voted last week to open debate on the bill did so in hopes of a robust amendment process and said they couldn’t support the final bill without significant changes. I’m interested to see how many Democrats who agreed to get on the bill last week will vote against ending debate tomorrow, although their opposition will be symbolic since Republicans think they have the 60 votes needed to advance to final passage.
Beyond the two votes from last night, the only other amendment proposed on the floor is from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to include crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury in the list of offenses that require mandatory detention if committed by an undocumented immigrant.
Do you have questions about the new Congress or the incoming Trump presidency? Drop me a line at michael@onceuponahill.com or send me a message below to get in touch and I’ll report back with answers.
Biden’s farewell: A stark warning of a dark future
In my preview of President Biden’s farewell speech last night, I wrote that it would be the final high-profile moment of his presidency to shape his more than 50-year legacy of public service.
It was telling that the president focused less on taking an extended victory lap and more on sounding the alarm about what he believes are threats to American democracy and the pursuit of the American Dream.
“In my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern,” Biden said. “And that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.”
Biden claimed that the rise of a handful of oligarchs whose extreme wealth, power and influence prevent average Americans from having a fair shot at getting ahead—not his policies, woke culture or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
As Trump prepares to enter office with his sights set on clawing back the president’s significant investments to address the climate crisis, Biden said not only are they working, but they’re creating so many jobs and industries of the future that the rest of the world is trying to model America’s framework.
“We’ve proven we don’t have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy. We’re doing both, Biden said. “But powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis to serve their own interest for power and profit.”
The potential rise of the “tech-industrial complex,” the erosion of a free press, social apps that traffic in misinformation and disinformation and the lightning-fast pace of artificial intelligence’s unregulated growth have created a perfect storm that could do more harm than good.
In Biden’s mind, at least, the solution to these problems is a combination of the presidency, Congress, the courts, the free press and the American people.
As if he were before a joint session of Congress delivering his State of the Union instead of the Oval Office signing off from a term as the leader of the free world, he outlined several proposals to confront these powerful forces.
They mostly sound familiar if you followed Biden’s presidency, such as ensuring big corporations and billionaires pay higher taxes, eliminating dark money from politics and enacting an 18-year term limit and enforceable ethics code, a ban on congressional stock trading and a constitutional amendment to repeal the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision from last year.
They’re mostly going to be ignored while Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“Now he tells us. Biden speaks out against dark money, for climate action, and for SCOTUS term limits. I pressed four years for this speech,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote on X. “That was a great speech. Had that speech launched the reelection campaign, we’d have won. Had that speech launched his presidency, we’d have saved America. Now we fight on.”
Of course, we’ll never know if Whitehouse is right. But what’s clear is that despite Biden’s warnings, for better or worse, he leaves office as he entered it: ever the optimist.
“After 50 years of public service, I give you my word, I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands, a nation where the strengths of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure,” he said. “Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it too.”