Sponsors
The bill trades increased local cooperation with federal immigration authorities and preserved public-safety coordination for greater risk that immigrants’ statuses will be shared (and potentially lead to detention/deportation), with possible deterrence of some victims and modest local administrative costs.
DC residents who are crime victims or witnesses — including noncitizens — can avoid having immigration or citizenship information shared with federal authorities, which should make them more willing to report crimes.
DC officials retain the ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, preserving local–federal coordination that can support public safety and law-enforcement operations.
Noncitizen residents in DC face greater risk that their citizenship or immigration status will be shared with federal authorities, increasing the chance of detention or deportation.
Victims or witnesses who are not covered by the exemption may be deterred from contacting police out of fear that their immigration status could be shared, which could reduce crime reporting in some communities.
The DC government may face added administrative costs and legal exposure from increased compliance with DHS detainer requests and information-sharing demands, which could strain local budgets and affect taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars D.C. from forbidding sharing of immigration-status information or from refusing to comply with federal detainer/notification requests, except for crime victims or witnesses.
Introduced April 30, 2025 by William Francis Hagerty · Last progress April 30, 2025
Prohibits the District of Columbia from having any law, policy, or practice that forbids or restricts District agencies or officials from sharing, receiving, maintaining, or exchanging information about a person’s citizenship or immigration status with federal, state, or local governments, or from complying with Department of Homeland Security requests to honor immigration detainers or to notify about releases. Creates a narrow exception: the District is not in violation solely because it has a policy refusing to share such information or refusing to comply with detainer requests when the individual is a victim or witness to a criminal offense.