Lawfare Archive: Nayna Gupta on the Laken Riley Act
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From February 7, 2025: On today’s podcast, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey spoke to Nayna Gupta, Director of Policy at the American Immigration Council, about the Laken Riley Act, the first piece of legislation signed by President Trump in his second term, its start as a messaging bill in the last Congress, and its impact on the immigration detention system.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Marissa Wong, |
| 0:11.0 | Internet Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare |
| 0:14.0 | for February 14, 2006. |
| 0:19.0 | This past summer, immigration customs andforcement issued an internal memo that drastically |
| 0:23.6 | expanded the administration's ability to detain undocumented immigrants. |
| 0:29.6 | The mandatory detention policy has since flooded the courts with habeas corpus cases, as ICE and Customs and Border Patrol has detained 73,000 people in the past year, |
| 0:41.1 | in many cases without even as much as a court year. |
| 0:44.5 | For today's archive, I chose an episode from February 7, 2025, in which Naina Gupta |
| 0:51.4 | joined at Lawfare to discuss the Lakin Riley Act, |
| 0:55.0 | the first piece of legislation signed by President Trump in his second term that requires the detention of non-citizens without bond if they are arrested for, charged with, or admit to committing certain crimes. |
| 1:08.0 | Gupta and Bauer explained why the act was introduced, what the act |
| 1:12.1 | means for the immigration detention system under the Trump administration, and more. |
| 1:33.8 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Anna Heki, Associate Editor of Communications at Lawfare, |
| 1:38.3 | with Nina Gupta, Director of Policy at the American Immigration Council. |
| 1:49.5 | Although, you know, keeping somebody detained without access to a bond hearing would absolutely violate basic due process in the criminal legal system. |
| 1:56.3 | The courts have allowed the use of this kind of mandatory detention in a case called DeMore versus Cam. |
| 2:06.4 | Today, we're talking about the Lake and Riley Act, the first piece of legislation signed by President Trump in his second term and its impact on the immigration detention system. |
| 2:16.3 | So before we discuss what is actually included in the Lake and Riley Act, can you give listeners a explanation of when it was first introduced and why? |
| 2:18.2 | Yeah, happy to. So the Lake and Riley Act was first introduced and why? Yeah, happy to. |
| 2:25.8 | So the Lake and Riley Act was first introduced in March of 2024 by Congressman Collins from Georgia, Mike Collins and Senator Katie Britt from Alabama. |
| 2:31.5 | The thing to know is that the bill was originally introduced essentially as a |
| 2:36.2 | messaging bill for the Republicans when they were in the minority in Congress as a way to signal |
... |
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