U.S. Senators Katie Britt, Mike Lee, Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Codify Automatic Flight Risk Status for Illegal Criminal Aliens

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and several of their Republican colleagues introduced the Flight Risk Reduction Act to prevent illegal alien criminal defendants from fleeing and failing to appear for trial.

“When individuals commit certain crimes in the United States, there are guardrails in place in our justice system to determine if they need to remain in pre-trial detention in order to ensure the safety of the American public,” said Senator Britt. “The Flight Risk Reduction Act takes an important step in amending current law to ensure illegal aliens who have perpetrated serious crimes are detained so that we can continue protecting American citizens and ensure justice is served. I’m proud to cosponsor this bill and look forward to its consideration by the Senate.”

Currently, detention hearings are automatically triggered for certain cases to assess whether a criminal defendant might flee. This bill would add non-U.S. citizenship as an automatic trigger for such hearings. The Flight Risk Reduction Act would categorize non-citizen criminals as presumed flight risks, require defendants to present evidence demonstrating they will not flee or harm others, and deem family ties and employment as possible evidence of community connections, but not necessarily sufficient factors for release.

“Our communities are unsafe when non-US citizens exploit loopholes to escape our justice system and continually break our laws,” said Senator Lee. “Just this week in Salt Lake, a suspected rapist told our police he plans to return to Peru after his assault of a local university student. Under President Biden, more than 150,000 illegal aliens skipped their criminal hearings in 2023. That is eight times the rate from before he took office. The Flight Risk Reduction Act ensures courts have the necessary power to detain non-citizen criminals before trial, unless they can prove they are not a flight risk.”

This legislation is also cosponsored by Senators Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), Ashley Moody (R-Fla), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Senator Britt has been a staunch advocate of holding criminal illegal aliens accountable for the crimes they’ve committed, introducing the Laken Riley Act, the most substantial immigration enforcement and border security bill to be enacted into law in nearly three decades. The bill was signed into law by President Trump and requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain illegal aliens who commit theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting offenses, assault of a law enforcement officer, or any crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury, so they cannot reoffend and commit further crimes. 

You can read the full text of the bill here.

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