Sponsor
Kevin Kiley
Representative · I-CA
Representative · I-CA
The bill strengthens federal-local immigration enforcement coordination and reduces liability for local actors, but does so at the cost of greater risks of detention and deportation for immigrants, weakened community trust and local control, and increased burdens on local governments.
State and local agencies can share information and transfer custody to federal authorities more quickly, enabling faster federal immigration enforcement and clearer coordination between local and DHS.
Clarifies that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the relevant federal agency for immigration matters, reducing confusion about which federal office to contact.
Provides legal indemnity to state/local agencies and contracted detention providers for complying with DHS detainers, lowering their civil-liability risk for cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
Immigrants (including those not charged with crimes) face substantially higher risk of being questioned, referred to federal authorities, wrongfully detained based on outdated or erroneous database matches, transferred to federal custody, and held longer—raising deportation and prolonged-detention risks.
Mandatory cooperation and increased information sharing are likely to undermine trust between immigrant communities and local police, reducing crime reporting and harming community-policing effectiveness.
State and local governments and officials could lose authority to adopt sanctuary policies or set local public-safety priorities, reducing local control over policing.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Preempts state limits on cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, authorizes DHS detainers with defined probable-cause rules, custody timelines, and federal indemnification.
Official title: To clarify the Federal Government's jurisdiction over immigration law and policy.
Introduced January 31, 2025 by Kevin Kiley · Last progress January 31, 2025
Requires states and localities to allow full cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and gives the Department of Homeland Security stronger detainer powers. It bars state laws that restrict government entities or personnel from assisting federal immigration enforcement, lists specific law-enforcement actions that states cannot prohibit, and lets DHS issue detainers with defined probable-cause rules, custody timelines, and federal indemnification for complying state/local actors (with a narrow bad-faith exception).