US Senator Joni Ernst has been working for many years to get a bill on the books, and her recent attempt was blocked by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

Ernst says that Sarah’s Law is something that she’s been working on with many other members of the Senate to try and get passed. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio how the bill came to be.

“Sarah’s Law is named after Sarah Root. She was a young woman from Council Bluffs, Iowa who was killed eight years ago by an illegal immigrant. Someone who was not supposed to be in this country, struck her, he was driving with his blood alcohol level way over the limit. He was speeding on the streets. He struck Sarah Root’s car from behind, and her injuries then led to her death at the hospital just hours later.”

Ernst mentions that the individual who struck Sarah was able to post bond, and then fled the state. She adds that Sarah’s Law would make it so that illegal immigrants who caused bodily injury or death to an American citizen would be unable to post bond, keeping them in place and allowing the law to do its job by sending them through the legal motions.