Legislatures are targeting undocumented immigrants with increasingly harsh proposals, including measures to certify bounty hunters and fingerprint children.
In the Midwest, Iowa and South Dakota lawmakers introduced bills requiring state driver’s licenses to indicate whether the driver is a U.S. citizen. Out West, Montana lawmakers would make immigration status checks a mandatory part of traffic stops there and compel employers to check the immigration status of those they hire.
“The thrust is costs and how do we help President Trump on the enforcement side?” said Andrew Good, director of state government relations at NumbersUSA, a right-wing group advocating immigration restrictions. “It’s definitely exciting.”
This wave of proposed laws and policies — the biggest in a decade, say legal experts — challenges long-established legal precedents ensuring undocumented immigrants have access to state legal, medical and education services.
Tim Storey, chief executive of the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan research and training group, had predicted as much following the November election. Given a record surge of migrants during part of the Biden administration, Trump had campaigned hard on repelling an “invasion” at the southern border.
“The tone from Washington, and the issues that the Trump administration and the Republican majority in Washington will emphasize and highlight, will have an effect in the states even though partisan change didn’t happen in the states,” Storey said during a December briefing on “hot topics and policy trends.”
Texas is leading the way. Legislators in Austin are pursuing a slew of actions, building on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s 2024 order that hospitals track the cost of treating undocumented immigrants. Among the measures: fingerprinting undocumented migrant children, barring undocumented migrants from receiving taxpayer-funded legal aid, creating a Texas Border Protection Unit and giving state law enforcement the power to deport migrants stopped near the border.
Florida lawmakers also have an extensive agenda. They have passed the Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy — another TRUMP Act — to create a state immigration czar with 150 staff members and $500 million in funding, increase penalties for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, force law enforcement agencies to join detention efforts, offer bonuses to police who assist in raids, and block in-state tuition rates for undocumented students.
While Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed to veto the act as “weak” and “watered-down,” state Sen. Joe Gruters said he and other GOP legislative leaders wrote it in consultation with the Trump administration and predicted it would ultimately become law.
“I talked to the president and Stephen Miller and others in his administration to get technical guidance on their needs,” said Gruters, a former state GOP chairman and longtime Trump ally. “That’s our goal: to support the president.”
Both Texas and Florida passed sweeping laws in recent years — quickly copied by some conservative counterparts — to create state immigration crimes and compel local police to enforce them. Courts have blocked full enactment so far, most recently with an injunction in Iowa last week, and a federal trial is scheduled in Austin this summer. Opponents have argued that the laws unconstitutionally usurp federal authority over immigration policy.
“The states have been playing a significant role in this broader narrative on immigration, both politically and administratively,” said Rick Su, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. “States have been driving the political debate.”
Presented with “inconvenient constitutional limitations,” he said, lawmakers have resorted to “workarounds” such as tallying costs and certifying bounty hunters. Beyond testing the boundaries of federal law, they’re also sending migrant communities a message, according to Su. “The main mechanism for these things is the chilling effect,” he said.
“The states have no business regulating immigration … and well over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent backs that up,” he said. “The strategy here is to terrify people.”
Yet conservatives are sure to keep pushing, fortified by a White House that is intent on deporting “millions and millions” of people back to their home countries, revoking the protected status of certain groups of immigrants and ending birthright citizenship, among other dramatic moves. The rhetoric of some Republican state leaders matches that coming out of Washington.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders listed immigration among her legislative priorities during her State of the State address in January, saying she hopes lawmakers pass the Defense Against Criminal Illegals Act to impose harsher penalties on “violent illegal immigrants” for criminal offenses and “remove them from our state.”
And Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry ordered state officials to track costs associated with undocumented immigrants, noting that the order was designed “to determine the financial burden our citizens are being forced to carry because of those who do not follow the law.”
“What the states are trying to do is claw back some authority on immigration as long as it’s not contradictory to federal immigration law,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the right-wing Center for Immigration Studies. He is among those who take issue with the argument that states have no authority in this arena. “They have a role,” he said. “They’re co-sovereigns.”
Bills are pending in numerous states to address the cost of educating undocumented immigrants. That could set up a challenge to the landmark Plyler v. Doe case from 1982, when the Supreme Court held 5-4 that states making undocumented students pay to attend public schools or otherwise barring them from enrolling was unconstitutional.
Last week, Oklahoma’s board of education voted to ask the legislature to require parents to report their immigration status when enrolling children in public schools. The information would have to be reported to the state — to help officials “assess statewide and local educational needs,” according to the rule change — and students not in the country legally would still be able to attend.
State Rep. Gabe Woolley, who teaches elementary and middle school in Tulsa, introduced a bill with similar provisions. He said his goal wasn’t to instill fear.
“I have worked in high immigrant population schools and have seen the impact,” he said. “My intent with this bill was to track where our tax dollars are going that pay for education.”
Monica Chavez, president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a Hispanic advocacy organization, says local migrants are already apprehensive.
“Some families will opt to not enroll their kids in school out of fear,” she said. “All the administrative changes right now seem to be attacking immigrant communities. It’s become really hard to calm our communities and reassure them.”
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which argued in favor of migrant students in the Plyler case, dismissed proposed state immigration restrictions as political grandstanding that won’t hold up in court.
“It’s scare tactics, and it’s political theater designed to appeal to a certain cohort of voters,” Saenz said. But, he added, “it has repercussions. People act on those fears.”
The Tennessee legislator behind the TRUMP Act there said he designed it as a direct legal challenge to Plyler. He and other conservatives think the outcome could be different now because of how much the high court has shifted to the right.
“This is intended to get the Supreme Court to look at that decision and overturn it,” acknowledged state Rep. Gino Bulso, who is a trial lawyer.
Bulso said he also wants to “demagnetize” Tennessee as a destination for undocumented migrants. Lawmakers just concluded a special session in which they took aim at sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, creating a felony offense for local officials who adopt such policies. They also authorized a Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division, to be led by an official coordinating directly with the Trump administration.
“It’s cooperating with federal authorities and allowing them to carry out their duties,” Bulso said.
Jennie Murray, who heads the National Immigration Forum, suggests states’ immigration restrictions could backfire, costing them more money, creating a patchwork of uneven statutes and destabilizing communities.
“To protect ourselves and truly be secure, we maintain that immigration enforcement absolutely must continue to be a federal priority and jurisdiction only,” said Murray, whose group advocates what it considers “the value of immigrants and immigration to the nation.”
In Missouri, state Sen. David Gregory said he proposed certifying bounty hunters because immigration “affects the states.”
His bill would fund a Missouri Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program that would certify licensed bail bondsmen to detain undocumented migrants. It also would require the state’s public safety department to establish a toll-free hotline, email address and online portal for individuals to turn in undocumented migrants. Any report resulting in an arrest would yield a $1,000 reward.
For conservative states, Gregory thinks the immigration issue is a fight worth having.
“You’re not going to just sit back and hope things change,” he said last week. “Trump’s going to do an outstanding job, but do you think waiting until we have another Biden administration to get ahead of this works? I don’t.”
