As federal and state officials push a hardline immigration agenda in Louisiana, state Republicans have already introduced six bills targeting immigrants in this year’s legislative session.
The proposals would force state agencies, including the health and education departments, to track the immigration status of people receiving public services, limit the compensation undocumented residents can receive in car accident settlements, and boost federal immigration enforcement, intensifying scrutiny on the estimated tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants living in Louisiana.
The bills follow a flurry of anti-immigration activity by the second Trump administration, which has increased arrests and deportations, denied due process for hundreds of immigrants sent to a notorious El Salvador prison, and targeted foreign scholars over political activities. Even prior to Trump’s latest crackdown, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry had sought to collect data related to undocumented immigrants and assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in efforts to arrest and detain people.
Those actions have created an atmosphere of fear in Louisiana’s immigrant communities, which are bracing for greater government scrutiny under the new legislative proposals, according to immigrants rights advocates.
“They’re trying to discourage immigrants from being in Louisiana,” said Tia Fields, who manages policy at advocacy nonprofit Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants in Baton Rouge.
To some extent, national advocates for decreased immigration agree.
“‘This is a way of creating a deterrent saying, if you’re in the country illegally, you might want to consider not settling in Louisiana,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on curbing immigration to the United States.
Immigration-related bills in the current legislative session could bolster immigration enforcement in the state and deter undocumented immigrants from receiving public services, critics of the proposals say.
The governor’s office and sponsors of the proposed legislation did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
A new task force to capture ‘fugitives?’
In January, President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to pursue more partnerships between ICE and local law enforcement agencies. Since then, at least two agencies in Louisiana have entered agreements with ICE to train officers to investigate and enforce federal immigration laws in their jails. House Bill 303, sponsored by Rep. Mike Bayham, R-Chalmette, seeks to create a state task force that would assist state and federal agencies in capturing “fugitives.”
Fields is concerned that the language of the bill does not clearly define who a fugitive is.
“This looks like executing arrest warrants and making warrantless arrests when somebody gets pulled over… because [an] officer feels like it and they’re able to identify that [an] individual is a noncitizen,” Fields said. “It’s really harmful. It’s going to place a lot of fear into the community.”
The Trump administration recently revived a type of partnership that authorizes trained local law enforcement officers to act as ICE agents during their normal duties in the communities they patrol. In an interview with Verite News last month, immigration and criminal justice attorney Matt Vogel called this model the “most full-throated” of the different types of agreements between ICE and local or state agencies. The Mississippi attorney general’s office signed such an agreement last month.
Mehlman said the proposed bill merely extends agreements for information sharing and boosted enforcement between local law enforcements to the federal level. He referenced the highly publicized murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who was killed by an undocumented immigrant previously arrested for offenses in New York, as a motivator for cooperation between agencies.
Immigrants’ rights advocates see this and other legislation up for debate as extensions of a 2024 law that prohibits local law enforcement agencies from maintaining policies that block collaboration with ICE. That law created a pathway for Attorney General Liz Murrill to seek to override a federally mandated policy at the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office that prohibits the agency from investigating immigration violations, considered civil matters, and from detaining immigrants for ICE without a court order, except in cases related to serious violent crimes.
It could be a crime to refuse to cooperate with ICE
Fields said she’s extremely concerned about how HB 303 would interact with Senate Bill 15, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe. If passed, the latter bill would charge public employees who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agencies with the crime of malfeasance in office. Community members accused of interfering with federal immigration enforcement could face charges of obstruction of justice. Fields said she fears that educators and health care workers may be asked to violate federal laws that protect certain classified information if the bill becomes law.
“What this bill intends to do is to criminalize educators and academic administrators for not allowing ICE on their campus[es] or for not releasing certain documents on certain students,” Fields said. “Health providers who refuse to share patient information or assist with immigration enforcement – they’re looking at facing criminal charges.”
Fields said she worries that the fugitive task force proposed in HB 303 would be able to use the regulations proposed in SB 15 to arrest and charge those educators and health care providers with malfeasance in office.
Will schools, public assistance offices have to report immigration status?
Two bills – House Bill 307, sponsored by Rep. Chance Henry, R-Crowley, and Senate Bill 100, sponsored by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia – would require state agencies to report the immigration status information of immigrants who seek public assistance or services, includinqg education and health care, to ICE or to state authorities.
Fields is concerned that these laws, if passed, could lead to profiling, harassment and wrongful deportations. She is concerned that people in mixed-status homes or people who are awaiting status adjustments will be targeted and that immigrants fearful of being reported will opt out of seeking health care and social services.
“You’ll see an incline of people becoming very sick or people dying from hunger because they’re fearful of applying for public assistance,” Fields said.
Mehlman said lawmakers aim to save resources for citizens and lawful residents. He added that lawmakers are concerned about the cost to taxpayers from supporting immigrants.
National immigrants rights organizations say immigration largely benefits the U.S. economy, not the other way around. In February, the American Immigration Council released a report, based on 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, claiming that undocumented immigrants had $300 billion in spending power in the country’s economy. In July 2024, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office projected that the massive increase in immigration in the last several years could result in a $8.9 trillion boost in the national gross domestic product in the following 10 years.
Another bill, House Bill 436, would block undocumented people from receiving damages or past and future wages if they’re involved in an automobile accident. Its sponsor, Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, said at a committee hearing Tuesday (April 22) the bill is designed to address Louisiana’s insurance rate crisis and the presence of undocumented immigrants in the state.
Fields said the bill, which advanced out of committee and is scheduled for House floor debate next week, “is devaluing the lives and labor of immigrants.”
And a sixth bill, House Bill 554, sponsored by Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, would require the Office of Motor Vehicles to add a restriction code on driver’s licenses and state IDs for noncitizens who are not green card holders indicating their status. Undocumented immigrants are already restricted from receiving drivers’ licenses in Louisiana.
The bill would also require a notice be issued to all noncitizens stating the penalties for voting or registering to vote in state or federal elections. Voting data shows that it is extremely rare for immigrants of any status to attempt to vote.
That bill is expected to be heard in the House Committee on Transportation, Highways and Public Works on April 30.