by Jeff Childers
The New York Times’ Michelle Golberg frantically scribbled an overwrought op-ed published yesterday under the dark and ominous title, “Democrats Will Regret Helping to Pass the Laken Riley Act.” Regret! Revenge! Other R-words! But, as the vast majority of comments to Michelle’s musings showed, the Act’s passage in the House and its likely passage in the Senate is very good news for America.
Sponsored in the Senate by Democrat John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the Act is named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student and devout Christian who was brutally assaulted and tragically strangled to death by a repeatedly arrested, released, and re-released illegal immigrant from Venezuela.
You’ll be forgiven for not knowing much about the Laken Riley Act. Like an overweight ballerina, corporate media has been ponderously balancing between talking enough about the Act to frighten low-information Democrats like Michelle Golberg, but also not talking about any of the Act’s particulars, since any sane American would instantly agree with the details.
There are two main parts of this “cruel and misguided” bill that terrify Michelle. The first part is mandatory ICE detention for any illegal alien arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. Maybe you, like me, thought things already worked that way. But no. So there’s been a tsunami of illegal alien shoplifting gangs, petty theft teams, and burglary squads — but local jurisdictions keep letting them go.
The thought that sanctuary states might have to stop letting crooks go was what scared Michelle Goldberg the most. She wailed that the…

Behold, the kind of soupy logic that apparently qualifies writers for publication in the world’s alleged top newspaper. In other words, Michelle is scared racist and xenophobic cops will start going around falsely accusing six-year-old Venezuelans of stealing high-fructose corn syrup sticks. You there! Drop that O’Henry and lay on the ground!
Okay, Michelle, sure. Now it’s time for your little lie down.
And yet, mandatory ICE detention for thieving illegal aliens is not particularly exciting, even for Democrats, as Goldberg —after crying about it for three paragraphs— ultimately acknowledged (“there’s little political upside in defending the rights of undocumented shoplifters,” she glumly admitted).
But the second main part of the Act that Michelle complained about is much more interesting and innovative. The law would authorize state attorneys general to sue the federal government whenever federal immigration enforcement or failures to enforce harmed the state or its residents, including financial harms as low as $100.
That means states could help force the federal government to follow the law by suing whenever an Administration “decides” not to enforce the parts of immigration law it doesn’t like. Right down to individual immigration cases. But even more interesting and more potentially exciting, worrying Michelle the most, the Act would give states a way to freeze new visas from stubborn countries refusing to accept returns of their own criminal citizens.
“If we ever have another Democratic president,” Michelle darkly mused, imagining the worst, “it’s easy to picture the most conservative state prosecutors suing to block the issuance of visas to, say, people from China. Immigration policy would be subject to a chaotic fight in the federal courts.”
Maybe. It could be a chaotic food fight, with candy bars.
To columnist Michelle Goldberg, who once encouraged pro-abortion activists to spit on peaceful pro-life protestors, letting states help enforce immigration law would be the worst thing imaginable. She thinks any Senate Democrats who join Republicans in helping beat the Senate filibuster are “completely capitulating to Republican demagogy with little evident concern for the long-term consequences.”
The Senate’s initial vote to allow debate on the Act passed 84-9. So.
At bottom, the Laken Riley Act is about federalism, about returning a teeny-tiny bit of control back to states. And the furious comments to Michelle’s op-ed fully illustrate that the nation is in no mood for regular politics about Biden’s out-of-control immigration problems.
The first step for the NYT is to have a complete understanding of the word ILLEGAL!!!! At this point I doubt if they even have a clue to what the word means!!!!!
“an overweight ballerina” – I believe the word you are looking for is “beeferina”
Deport all illegal whether they are thugs or not.
Nothing makes me worry more about the future of this country than when laws have to be passed to force existing laws to be enforced.
Start sending all our Dangerous Felon’s to Mexico and give them maps to all their government places lets s end Migrants to the UN Place
By deporting ~4% of folk in America Ike reduced government spending so much he had a BUDGET SURPLUS 3 of the next 6 years. Budget surpluses cause inflation to be negative; DEFLATION! ALL WORKING AMERICANS GOT A SERIES OF TAX FREE RAISES!
One for instance I think all can grok; coffee,
In 1953 $1.00 would buy 3#. In 1960 $1.00 got 4 #! Here; all Americans got a 33.33% pay raise even if the boss gave us none! As J.M.Keyns accurately noted the “Roaring 20’s” were roaring because of deep deflation!
I know as i lived and was fully literate then.
Also very biased. Had 3 high school teachers send me to detention; and downgrading my “A”‘s to “B”‘s because I said Ike was not a White nationalist; he enforced the law; benefiting all law abiding Americans!
The Vatican has done a 180.
The pope, who played the guilt card on Europe and America’s lefties so their borders would be wide open, has now said no illegal aliens will be allowed to live in the Vatican’s property.
I wonder what happened.
The Vatican had hand-picked a couple of illegal families and put them up in style a year or two ago.
Now, it’s over?
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261557/vatican-cracks-down-on-illegal-entry-into-its-territory
The world is changing.
I think it’s called the “Trump Effect.”
Dont give them a warm spot they will occupy the theater and not leave.
https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/paris-theater-migrants-take-over/
Now they want the City to fix the issue as they will go bankrupt,
I think its now called the Ursula effect.
Perhaps ICE should just insure illegals are housed next to the employees of the NY Times.