In February 2024, Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., received a devastating phone call from a sheriff in his home district while attending a Trump rally in South Carolina. The sheriff informed Collins that Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student enrolled at Augusta University’s College of Nursing, had been murdered while jogging on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 24.
The gruesome murder set off almost a year of policy debates and political calculus that culminated in President Donald Trump signing the Laken Riley Act into law. Collins, the leading House Republican on that piece of legislation, joined “The Signal Sitdown” to give a behind-the-scenes look at how Republicans got this major legislative accomplishment across the finish line.
When Collins received that call in February 2024, he had a feeling the perpetrator was a criminal illegal alien. “I said, ‘Oh God, don’t tell me what you’re gonna tell me next,’” Collins recalled. In response, the sheriff told Collins, “Well, I can’t confirm it, but I can assure you.”
The illegal alien murderer, 26-year-old José Antonio Ibarra of Venezuela, was arrested the day after the heinous crime. Riley’s murder could have easily been prevented if America had anything close to a sane immigration system.
Ibarra, who was found guilty of all charges in November 2024, was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after illegally entering the United States in September 2022, but he was released on parole while awaiting further immigration proceedings. A year later, Ibarra was arrested in New York City and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child under 17 but was released back onto the streets. A month later, Ibarra and his brother were arrested in Athens, Georgia, for shoplifting at a local Walmart. He was released while awaiting court proceedings, proceedings for which he failed to appear.
Soon after learning about Riley’s murder, Collins said he “made a phone call to the family and told them that we were gonna be on top of this.”
The product was the Laken Riley Act, which Collins introduced in the last Congress on March 1, 2024. The legislation requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain illegal immigrants arrested for a number of crimes, such as theft, rather than letting criminal illegal immigrants out on the street and hoping they do not strike again.
The bill passed out of the Republican-controlled House with some Democrat support, but “when it got to the Senate, it just fell into that big black hole over there,” Collins said.
“I told the family, uh, we talked after it went over there and I was told there’s no way it’s coming up,” Collins recalled. “And I told them it had gotten personal. I told them that I couldn’t let it go.”
“No matter what, we were gonna get this passed if it’s the last thing that I ever do,” Collins said.
The strategy was straightforward: Say her name. “We were sitting around [thinking] how do we do this? We make sure that we keep this in the public, we make sure that we keep this in the media. We make sure that Laken Riley’s name becomes the face of this problem,” Collins told The Daily Signal. “We do that, we’ll be able to get some legislation that’ll impact and make a change.”
Democrats only changed their tune on legislation like the Laken Riley Act after thoroughly getting embarrassed in the November election. Collins went door to door on Capitol Hill to try to whip the votes in both the House and Senate to get the Laken Riley Act on Trump’s desk.
Some Democrats, however, threatened to undermine the effectiveness of the bill while still taking credit for it, Collins said—even elected officials from his own state. “[Sen. Jon Ossoff] told me he was gonna dismantle the whole bill, make it his bill.”
“That ought to tell you where people stood right then,” he recalled. “It wasn’t about the policy, it was about the politics. Because he’s up for reelection and he knows he’s in trouble.”
Collins and Republicans managed to keep the bill intact and apply enough pressure so that Democrats caved. The House voted in favor, 264-to-159, and the Senate, 64-to-35.
Collins was with Riley’s family when Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law on Jan. 29, 2025. Collins recalled Riley’s mother asked to speak at the signing event, turning to him and saying, “Mike, I get pretty emotional,” Collins recalled.
“I said, yeah, me too,” Collins replied, “but when I do, I just take in a deep breath, and when I do that, I can continue talking.”
During her speech, “it was getting emotional,” Collins said. “She paused, and I could see out of the corner of my eye, President Trump … put his hand on her shoulder.”
”You think about how that young lady fought for her life,” Collins said, “she fought to her last breath, and that’s the least that we could do for her.”
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
