Missouri Press Association
Serving Missouri Newspapers Since 1867
Missouri News Network: Statehouse News for MPA Members
This report is written by Missouri School of Journalism students for publication by MPA member newspapers in print and online.
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We have a story looking at how state legislatures across the country are lining up behind, or in opposition, to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. It has a heavy Missouri component. — Mark Horvit (horvitm@missouri.edu)
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State lawmakers across the United States are considering bills that would assist President Donald Trump’s promise to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally. Dozens of proposals require state and local officials to cooperate with federal agencies’ crackdown on illegal immigration.
Proposals range from prohibitions on cities adopting “sanctuary” policies to new laws allowing state officials to arrest people they suspect are in the country illegally.
Local officials could face fines or other penalties for refusing to cooperate with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement under a number of measures.
The Statehouse Reporting Project analyzed 223 bills across 35 states related to immigration enforcement. Most bills, 76%, sought to aid the Trump administration’s efforts. Nine Missouri bills appeared in the search, though the results did not account for all immigration enforcement bills introduced in the state.
Ramping up deportation is politically popular in the country. Two-thirds of Americans support deporting people who are in the U.S. illegally, according to an Axios/Ipsos poll conducted in January. When presented with specific deportation proposals, support declines significantly.
In 18 states, the search turned up only bills that would strengthen immigration enforcement and no bills supporting immigrant rights.
At least 17 bills would require state and local officials to provide information to or cooperate with ICE.
Another 22 bills would either bar cities from adopting sanctuary policies — measures that are favorable to immigrants — or divert state funding should the municipalities adopt such policies.
Missouri immigration crackdown
Under three Missouri bills, those entering Missouri who are in the country illegally under federal immigration law would face deportation.
Two of the measures – one introduced by Sen. Ben Brown, R-Washington, and another introduced by Sen. Jill Carter, R-Granby, – impose a $10,000 fine. A third bill introduced by Sen. Curtis Trent, R-Springfield, ups the fine to $100,000.
All three enable local law enforcement to arrest or detain people suspected of violating the proposed new laws.
Carter’s bill creates the Interstate Compact for Border Security, an interstate immigration treaty. Bills with similar language have passed in Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Iowa and Tennessee, Carter told the Missouri Senate Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety at a Jan. 27 hearing.
“Missouri also has a responsibility to protect its borders and ensure the welfare and security of its residents,” she told the committee. Carter expressed concern about smuggling drugs and people, as well as the spread of tuberculosis.
A heated exchange between Carter and Sen. Barbara Washington, D-Kansas City, followed. Both lawmakers raised their voices and interrupted each other. Washington expressed concerns about the potential for racial profiling.
“I just don’t want us being in a position that every single person who doesn’t look like you gets arrested because they’re supposedly a criminal,” Washington said.
“Senator, I don’t think that’s the intent of anyone here,” Carter responded.
“But that is what, that’s what this bill is,” Washington said.
Newly-elected Gov. Mike Kehoe signed two executive orders related to immigration in January. The first requires Missouri State Highway Patrol officers to receive training in federal immigration enforcement “equipping officers to enforce federal immigration laws during the course of their normal duties,” the order reads. The order also directs the state Department of Public Safety to work with federal agencies.
A 2008 law already allows Highway Patrol officers to receive the training and enforce federal immigration law, but Kehoe said a “mechanism” prevented Highway Patrol from moving forward in the collaboration.
The second executive order requires state law enforcement to record immigration status in arrest reports.
“Immigration is one of the biggest issues plaguing our country and our state,” Kehoe told reporters at a press event Jan. 23. He estimated more than 70,000 immigrants lacking permanent legal status live in the state.
“Being able to take the right steps when law enforcement encounters them is very important to law enforcement. They feel they don't have the tools to do that right now,” he said.
States take on immigration enforcement
Immigration was once the purview of the states. As early as the mid-1800s, Massachusetts used taxpayer money to deport Irish immigrants who sought refuge from the potato famine, according to an 1855 article from the Boston Daily Advertiser.
In contemporary history, a 1996 federal law strengthened the federal government’s role in immigration. Part of that law, the 287(g) program, enabled the states to collaborate with federal agencies. “That authority largely sat there unused,” said Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute.
That changed after 9/11, when state, local and even university police worked with the federal government to combat and police terrorist activity. Local and state law enforcement increasingly shared information, including fingerprints, of people booked on both minor and serious crimes with ICE.
“These people ended up hoovered into the deportation pipelines, regardless of the severity of the offenses on which they had been brought in,” Mittelstadt said. This collaboration has waxed and waned over the last three presidential administrations.
At least seven bills across five states, including Missouri, would criminalize entering a state as an undocumented immigrant. Those found guilty would face a fine up to $100,000, plus prison time or deportation. The bills mirror a Texas law currently on hold pending a lawsuit.
At least two states have hardline immigration bills with the acronym TRUMP.
A spat between Florida’s GOP-led legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis jeopardized the legislature’s Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy Act, or TRUMP Act. Lawmakers passed the measure Jan. 28. DeSantis criticized the legislative package as “weak, weak, weak” and threatened to veto it.
Florida and Missouri join a number of states with bills seeking to compel employers to report the immigration status of job applicants.
Tennessee is challenging a 1982 Supreme Court decision by introducing a bill that would allow school districts to deny enrollment to immigrant students who lack permanent legal status. The bill comes on the heels of a separate bill proposed in January called the “Tennessee Reduction of Unlawful Migrant Placement Act” or TRUMP Act, which would require immigrants lacking permanent legal status to pay for their children’s attendance at public schools.
Tennessee lawmakers are also proposing the Tennessee Illegal Immigration Act, which would require law enforcement to hold detainees for ICE. If the person is not taken into federal custody, law enforcement would transfer them to a sanctuary city.
Kansas senators recently voted 31-9 to approve a resolution encouraging the governor to cooperate with the Trump administration on immigration, including using the Kansas National Guard. Another Kansas measure bans companies from hiring “unauthorized aliens.”
Like Kehoe in Missouri, the newly elected governor of Indiana, Mike Braun, signed an executive order in January directing state law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration policies.
Indiana’s supermajority Republican General Assembly is considering more than 10 immigration bills. One would require law enforcement to report anyone they arrest whom they believe to lack permanent legal status.
Some states are pushing back
Twenty-one percent of the bills analyzed by the Statehouse Reporting Project are in direct opposition to immigration enforcement efforts or seek to aid immigrants lacking permanent legal status.
At least 12 bills attempt to prohibit or limit state and local officials from cooperating with ICE.
Detention Watch Network, a group focused on ending immigrant detention, is pushing for proactive legislation limiting enforcement in three areas: keeping ICE out of sensitive areas like churches and schools, data privacy to limit government agencies from sharing information with ICE and limiting state cooperation with ICE.
“Right now, enforcement is what we should prioritize to avoid people going through the detention and deportation pipeline,” said Luis Suarez, senior field advocacy manager for the network.
New York had the most bills, 15, opposing the Trump administration's efforts, followed by Hawaii and New Jersey. Democrats control both chambers and the governorship in all three states.
New Mexico Democrats, who hold the governor’s office and majorities in both houses of the legislature, are working to protect immigrants lacking permanent legal status. Only about 10% of the population in New Mexico is foreign born.
One bill would give students who lack permanent legal status access to in-state tuition rates and state scholarships that can pay full tuition.
“We have folks who are working maybe one or two minimum wage jobs, have a family, and this bill would allow them the opportunity to pursue a higher degree, to improve their skills,” said the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Eleanor Chávez, D-Bernalillo.
Another bill would make it easier for immigrant victims of crime to get U visas, available to crime victims. Two other measures limit disclosure of a person’s immigration status to a third party.
Massachusetts has come far from its days deporting Irish immigrants. This year’s focus has been on the management of emergency assistance shelters filled to overflowing by migrants drawn to the state by an over 40-year-old right-to-shelter law.
Contributing to this story were Ella Thompson from Fresh Take Florida; Samantha Granados from VCU Capital News Service; Natalie Pursche from the University of Kansas; Mia Casas from the University of New Mexico; Katie Beth Cannon, Madeleine Bradford, Maya Burney, Bree Fabbie, and Lauren Haney from Belmont University; John Osmond from Capital News Service/Spartan Newsroom in Michigan, Anna Cecil from The Statehouse File at Franklin College, Indiana; reporting from the Boston University Statehouse Program, and Anna Sago and Adan Pittman from the University of Missouri. Bill analysis was conducted using BillTrack50.
