Louisiana bill would put immigration enforcement in state’s hands

Louisiana legislators will soon consider a bill that would empower local and state law enforcement officials to arrest people on suspicion of being in the country illegally.

Senate Bill 388 closely resembles a controversial Texas law facing a high-profile legal challenge from the Biden administration and civil rights groups, which argue that it unconstitutionally usurps the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration law and will create chaos at the state’s southern border.

The Louisiana bill, filed last week by Sen. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, is scheduled for a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary C committee. Even if S.B. 388 passes the Legislature and is signed into law, its fate will ultimately depend on how the courts rule on the Texas law, known as Senate Bill 4.

That law has been a centerpiece in a battle between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden administration over whether states have the authority to create immigration policy of their own. Last Tuesday, after weeks of back-and-forth in the federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court briefly allowed the Texas law to take effect before it was blocked by judges at the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. A final Supreme Court ruling could reverse long-held legal precedent on federal immigration authority over that of the states.

Several other Republican-controlled states, including Kansas and Oklahoma, are also considering similar legislation this year, with Iowa lawmakers passing a comparable bill last week.

Like the Texas law, the Louisiana bill would expand the authority of state and local officers in what is currently the role of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. It would make “unlawful entry or unlawful reentry by an alien” into Louisiana state crimes, with punishment of up to one year in prison for first-time offenses and two years for repeat offenses.

The proposed bill would also create an interstate compact with other states, namely Texas, to enforce border security. The bill depends on a ruling in the Texas case. If passed, it would act as a trigger law, effective immediately upon a court ruling favorable to the Lone Star State.

Hodges said that she has been working on the bill since last November, following years of waiting for the federal government “to take action” on the border. The number of people who have crossed the U.S. southern border from Mexico reached record high levels during the Biden administration, though those figures dropped drastically from Dec. 2023 to January 2024.

“We are being invaded and we’ve learned that many of those entering our country are known terrorists, criminals, human traffickers and drug cartel members,” Hodges said in an emailed statement to Verite News.

Studies have shown that undocumented people have lower crime rates than U.S. citizens.

Critics of the bill argue that the legislation is an unconstitutional overreach of state authority.

Huey Fischer García, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the law would make local police officers act like ICE officers and state judges act like immigration judges.

“It’s going to create a backlog in our courts, it’s going to drain state resources, and it’s not going to actually reduce crime or make Louisiana any safer,” Fischer García said.

‘A tremendous power grab’

The bill comes as Gov. Jeff Landry, in his first months in office, has begun to implement his hardline stance on immigration. One week after assuming his new role in January, Landry ordered state agencies to gather and publish information on immigrants living in Louisiana. In February, Landry appeared beside Abbott and other Republican governors at the southern border in Texas to argue that the Biden administration “has completely abdicated its responsibility” to enforce immigration law. He also deployed 150 Louisiana National Guard troops to the border in South Texas.

Landry’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Unlike the Texas law, the Louisiana bill would not give state officers the power to deport people. The Texas law also imposes harsher punishments for illegal entry and re-entry, up to twenty years in prison for repeat offenses. But the Louisiana bill would place Louisiana in an interstate compact with Texas and other states willing to participate in Texas’ state-led border security efforts.

According to the Louisiana bill, members of this compact would share law enforcement information and provide state resources to build surveillance systems and physical barriers to deter illegal activity along the border.

The Constitution permits states to enter into these compacts in the case of invasion, said Hodges, who has a history of promoting anti-immigration policy and whose campaign website credits her with leading a fight in 2016 to “put an end to sanctuary cities in Louisiana.”

“We have a right to defend our nation,” Hodges said in a statement.

Immigration rights attorneys also argue that S.B. 388 is a poorly written bill that does not adhere to the technical standards of federal immigration code. The language of the bill is so broad it would even implicate foreign tourists visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras, said Sarah Rich, an attorney with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Litigation Team.

“Every word in the immigration code means something specific, and here they’re just throwing words around,” Rich said.

The Louisiana bill could lead law enforcement to racially profile individuals as well, Rich said:  “You’re asking local sheriff’s deputies, local cops, to try to figure out who is here unlawfully. …Of course there are concerns about racial profiling because of how immigration status is conflated with race.”

Another immigration bill in this year’s session, sponsored by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, would override any local, so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Miguez’s bill would also give the governor the authority to withhold state funding to local governments with such policies. That bill, which passed out of committee, is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Attorneys at the SPLC believe that bill is a targeted attack on New Orleans’ local immigration practices. The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has not fulfilled ICE detainer requests since 2013, a common practice among sanctuary cities.

“It’s a tremendous power grab for a governor who has been really hostile not only to immigrants but to New Orleans at large,” Fischer García said.

This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.