The 12 Democrats Who Voted to Give Trump a Huge Win on Immigration

On Monday evening, just hours after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Senate passed the Laken Riley Act, an extreme bill that would allow for the deportation and detention of any undocumented immigrant merely suspected of a nonviolent crime. And they did it with the help of 12 Democrats.

The bill passed 64-35 with only 35 Democrats, including independents Bernie Sanders and Angus King, voting against it. Democrats Ruben Gallego and John Fetterman co-sponsored the bill along with Republican Katie Britt.

The bill, which is likely to be signed into law by Trump, would only require an arrest, not a conviction or charge, to target an undocumented immigrant for federal detention and possible deportation. The bill does not include protections for children or DACA recipients.

Many Democrats sought to enact changes to the bill, hoping to strip out some of its worst features, like the lack of protection for minors. Ultimately, the only amendments to the bill came from Republicans: One from Senator John Cornyn that requires ICE to detain undocumented immigrants who attack law enforcement, and another from Joni Ernst, which expands the bill to include undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes.

The following Democrats voted to enact the Laken Riley Act:

1. Catherine Cortez Masto—Nevada
2. John Fetterman—Pennsylvania (co-sponsor)
3. Ruben Gallego—Arizona (co-sponsor)
4. Maggie Hassan—New Hampshire
5. Mark Kelly—Arizona
6. Jon Ossoff—Georgia
7. Gary Peters—Michigan
8. Jacky Rosen—Nevada
9. Jeanne Shaheen—New Hampshire
10. Elissa Slotkin—Michigan
11. Mark Warner—Virginia
12. Raphael Warnock—Georgia
    

Donald Trump is already failing the implicit geography test that is taking office as the president of the United States.

Just hours after being sworn in Monday, a reporter asked Trump about his demand that NATO member states spend at least five percent of their GDP on defense, citing Spain’s defense spending level. The president responded completely incorrectly.

“Spain is very low. And yet, are they a BRICS nation?” Trump asked.

“What?” the reporter replied.

“They’re a BRICS nation, Spain. You know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out,” Trump said, managing to be both snide and wrong.

“But uh, and if the BRICS nations want to do that, that’s OK, but we’re gonna put at least 100 percent tariff on the business they do with the United States,” Trump said.

The ‘S’ in BRICS does not stand for Spain at all.

The countries in BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and new member states Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, UAE, and Iran. No state in the entire European Union is a member of BRICS. Here’s hoping that the president of the United States will eventually “figure it out.”

Mehdi Hasan, the editor-and-chief of Zeteo News, shared a video of Trump’s gaffe on X late Monday, writing, “We need to talk about the president’s age and memory and mental health.”

“If Biden had said this, it would be on a 24/7 loop on cable, and all over TikTok,” Hasan wrote in a separate post on X.

Donald Trump has been president for less than a day, and Elon Musk already has a White House email address—and is expected to receive office space as well. 

The Hill reports that the world’s richest man, who will be the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (that isn’t officially a government department) already has an email address searchable by the Executive Office of the President, according to an unnamed source. 

“It seems to confirm he’s going to have an [Eisenhower Executive Office Building] office,” the source said. According to The New York Times, however, Musk will likely be granted even greater access with a coveted West Wing office in the White House, where the Oval Office is located. 

How often Musk will actually use that office isn’t clear, considering that the tech mogul also serves as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, owns X (formerly Twitter),  has 12 children with three different mothers, and spends his free time cheating in online gaming. But spending $250 million to help Trump get elected seems to buy a lot of access to the president. 

Earlier on Monday, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was expected to be co-chair of DOGE with Musk, was forced out of the non-department, allegedly for wearing out his welcome. This gives Musk near-total control of an entity charged with reducing the size of the federal government, where he will surely try to slash anything Trump and the MAGA right think isn’t important. 

Less than two weeks ago, DOGE reportedly had 50 employees working out of SpaceX’s D.C. offices, with that number expected to double by Inauguration Day. With his own small army in tow, it seems that Musk will have the ear of President Trump whenever he wants, only having to walk a short distance to the Oval Office if he so chooses.

Donald Trump’s 2025 inaugural entourage was noticeably more flush than the crowd at his first presidential ceremony, with the attendees’ total net worth approaching $1.2 trillion. The New Republic broke down the net worths of the attendees with the biggest pockets.

• Donald Trump

Trump himself is worth upwards of $60 billion as of Monday. That’s in large part thanks to his memeified crypto coin, $TRUMP, which skyrocketed in value on Sunday, bringing his holdings to an astonishing $58 billion, according to Axios. That’s enough to jettison him into the top 25 wealthiest people in the world, according to data from Forbes’s real time billionaires list.

• Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg
  

Trump’s inauguration saw a band of Silicon Valley’s top leaders appear on the metaphorical dais, representing a prioritization of the tech industry’s interests on the eve of a new administration. The trio, on their own, represent the three richest people in the world. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is worth $433.9 billion. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos comes second with an estimated net worth of $239.4 billion. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pulls right behind Bezos, with a net worth hovering around $211.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Altogether, the three men are worth upwards of $885.1 billion. The median net worth of an American, meanwhile, is $192,200, according to Investopedia.

• Sam Altman, Tim Cook
  

Open AI CEO Sam Altman and Apple CEO Tim Cook were also present in the Capitol Rotunda Monday after donating millions to his inaugural fund. Altman’s estimated net worth is $1.1 billion, while Cook’s estimated net worth is $2.2 billion, per Forbes.

• Shou Zi Chew
  

TikTok’s CEO received a last-minute invite to Trump’s celebration, as the pair are reportedly working toward a solution to keep the popular video-sharing platform alive in the U.S. market. But the Singaporean executive’s presence at the inauguration also bumped up the total net worth of its attendees, adding some $200 million to the pot, according to the New York Banner.

• Rev. Franklin Graham
  

Televangelist minister Reverend Franklin Graham gave a short sermon on Trump’s behalf Monday, standing before the crowd to bestow a blessing of success and protection on the 47th president, who over the course of his campaign survived two assassination attempts. Estimates for Graham’s net worth vary wildly, though his total value is believed to be somewhere around $10 million. 

• Vivek Ramaswamy
  

Vivek Ramaswamy has been a presence by Trump’s side for the better part of the last year, supporting and bolstering Trump’s ideals to the American public. The biotech executive’s net worth is estimated at just over $1 billion, according to The Economic Times. Though all the money in the world apparently isn’t enough to stay in Trump’s good graces, especially now that the 47th president is out of the campaign cycle. Reports swirled on Monday that Ramaswamy was on the outs of Trumpworld, even reportedly exiting the not-yet-real Department of Government Efficiency in favor of running to replace  term-limited Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

The impact of Trump’s anti-immigrant policy at the southern border was felt the minute he reassumed the presidency.

People were sobbing at the U.S.-Mexico border Monday afternoon after an app to book appointments with Customs and Border Patrol went offline.

“Migrants in Ciudad Juárez who were waiting for their 1pm CBP1 parole appointments learned 20 minutes ago that the app has shut down & those appointments are no longer valid,” said The Washington Post’s Arelis R. Hernández, who was at the scene.

The CBP One app was a critical resource for people looking to enter the United States, allowing them to check border wait times, get their products inspected, and most importantly, schedule appointments in hopes of entering the country legally. But on Monday, the app went dark right as Trump was getting sworn in, and all the appointments afterwards were cancelled. In Biden’s term, the app helped an estimated 930,000 people schedule appointments, according to federal officials.

“Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One™ that previously allowed undocumented aliens to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been cancelled,” the Customs and Border Patrol website reads.

“The people losing CBP One appointments were patiently waiting in Mexico & complying with a smart process that could modernize asylum,” wrote Buzzfeed Tech’s Andrea Flores. “Eliminating CBPOne is not only deeply unfair to the human beings who were following the rules, but this move will destabilize the border.”

This kicks off Trump’s draconian immigration plans, including what he promises to be the “largest deportation program in US history.” He either already has or plans to later sign multiple executive orders regarding the border: declaring a state of emergency there, labeling drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, directing the military to concentrate on the southern border, and attempting to revoke birthright citizenship.

The specific result of the CBP One app’s closure remains to be seen.

“The CBP1 app is credited for moving migrants into a lawful process of entry since it created an orderly system of proof, all on the other side of the US border,” professor Juliette Kayyem wrote. “Trump argues ending it means they will stop trying to enter. History suggests many will just try unlawfully.”

The hardline shift to the right on immigration is materializing even faster than anticipated. Communities everywhere can only prepare.