Legislation that would require the deportation of undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes like shoplifting is quickly advancing through Congress, even as advocates for victims of domestic violence say the bill could lead to the wrongful detention and deportation of immigrants in abusive situations, who are overwhelmingly women.

The legislation will move forward without a series of amendments introduced Thursday by Sen. Mazie Hinoro of Hawaii that sought to shield victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. Final passage is expected on Monday, just hours after President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated. 

The expansive piece of legislation cleared the House last week and advanced through the Senate on Friday with support from 10 Democrats, giving Trump bipartisan support to deliver on his promise to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

The measure was introduced by Republicans and named after Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was killed last February by an immigrant who had been previously arrested for shoplifting. Riley’s death became a lightning rod for Trump’s anti-immigrant message during the presidential campaign, and the bill’s sponsors say the legislation is meant to prevent another such tragedy. 

Immigrants’ rights groups have widely condemned the bill, which could result in the mass deportation of immigrants who are not guilty of the crimes they are accused of. A coalition of advocates for victims of domestic violence say that the lack of due process — immigrants could be detained and deported without being convicted — could wrongfully ensnare people facing domestic violence or human trafficking by offering little to no recourse for such victims to lay out their circumstances to law enforcement or a judge.

Victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, these advocates say, are often threatened with false accusations and separation from their children, and also sometimes coerced to commit crimes. For immigrant victims fearful of deportation, the legislation could create a new tool for coercive control, said Casey Carter Swegman, director of public policy at the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. 

The Tahirih Justice Center is leading a coalition of advocacy groups urging lawmakers to oppose the bill, arguing that it is an inadequate response to Riley’s death and that lawmakers’ response should be anchored in laws that meaningfully address gender-based violence — not potentially further it. The coalition includes the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the Battered Women’s Justice Project and the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors. 

“We are trying to really educate folks on this tool of power and control that is very unique to immigrant survivors, which is abusers who threaten to have them deported, separated from their children, leaving their children in the hands of a single parent who does use violence — this has an incredible chilling effect” on victims separating from abusers or reporting them to law enforcement, Carter Swegman said. 

Under the current legal system, someone accused of shoplifting, for example, might lay out their circumstances before a judge during a bail hearing. If the proposed law goes into effect, victims of intimate partner violence, sexual assault and other gender-based abuse would have to make their case in the immigration detention system, which advocates sometimes refer to as a “black box” for how difficult it can be to reach people inside. 

“Survivors that are detained are going to end up often far from their community, their families, their resources, such as attorneys, and in detention centers that might be in locations where there’s limited or really difficult access to counsel — pro bono counsel,” said Hannah Shapiro, an attorney with the DV Immigration Project at the Legal Aid Society of New York. 

“They’re going to have a hard time getting an attorney to represent them and to help prove to a judge that they’re a victim of domestic violence. They’re set up for failure.” 

Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, introduced a series of amendments late Thursday meant to help shield victims of domestic violence or human trafficking from detention and deportation. The amendments would have exempted immigrants who are part of an active investigation into human trafficking or domestic violence, who make a credible claim that they’re a victim of either crime or who federal, state and local law enforcement identify as a possible victim of these crimes. The amendments also would have shielded immigrants who have pending petitions under visa programs meant to protect victims of these crimes who cooperate with law enforcement.  

“Domestic violence and trafficking abusers often threaten to report their victims for fictitious crimes as a way of maintaining control, or threaten to report their victims for crimes they were coerced into committing,” Hirono said in a statement Thursday. “As it is currently written, the Laken Riley Act would provide abusers with another tool to use against their victims.”

Last week, Hirono was among the nine Democrats who voted against bringing the bill to the Senate floor for debate and amendments, a vote that cleared the path for Republicans to push the bill forward. Many of those Democrats said they were hoping for an amendments process that would yield a better bill, but ultimately, the bill was only amended to add assault of a law enforcement officer to the list of relevant offenses. On Friday, the Senate voted 61-35 to advance the bill without a hearing on dozens of amendments.