Sponsors
The bill trades expanded federal authority, incentives, and protections to promote cooperation with immigration enforcement and to protect officers—providing victims new remedies—against greater legal and fiscal pressure on state and local governments, reduced remedies and protections for immigrants, increased litigation and federalization of certain crimes, and higher incarceration and social-service risks for vulnerable communities.
State and local governments: the bill creates clearer federal definitions of detainers and strong federal incentives (conditioning grants, treating local officers as federal agents) to coordinate with DHS, increasing federal-local operational alignment on immigration enforcement.
Victims and families of murder, rape, and qualifying felonies: the bill establishes a private civil remedy (with fee-shifting for prevailing plaintiffs) against jurisdictions that ignore DHS detainer/notification requests, improving victims' access to compensation.
Law enforcement officers: officers who follow DHS detainer requests gain federal defenses (treated as federal agents) and the bill creates harsher federal penalties (including mandatory minimums and federal first-degree murder charges for covered officer homicides), increasing legal protection and potential deterrence against assaults on officers.
State and local governments and taxpayers: the bill increases liability exposure, litigation risk, and conditions grant funding (waiver of sovereign immunity), which can lead to more lawsuits, legal costs, and potential loss of federal development grants or other funding.
Immigrants and immigrant communities: jurisdictions labeled as 'sanctuary' or otherwise targeted may face increased immigration enforcement, reduced local protections, and fewer state-law or constitutional remedies when seized under DHS detainers, chilling trust and cooperation with local authorities.
Low-income communities and local social services: conditioning EDA and most CDBG grants on waiver of sovereign immunity may reduce community development funding in jurisdictions that refuse waivers, harming services and projects that low-income residents rely on.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal lawsuits against states/localities over violent crimes tied to defined "sanctuary" policies, conditions some federal grants on waiving immunity, and raises penalties for attacks on officers.
Introduced February 5, 2026 by Thomas Roland Tillis · Last progress February 5, 2026
Creates a federal cause of action allowing victims (or their close relatives) to sue States and localities when a noncitizen who benefited from a defined “sanctuary” policy commits certain violent crimes and the jurisdiction failed to honor DHS detainers or notify DHS of releases. It conditions some federal economic and community-development grants on waiver of sovereign immunity for those suits, treats local officers who comply with DHS detainers as federal agents for liability purposes (substituting the United States and the FTCA as the exclusive remedy), and raises criminal penalties for assaults and murders of law enforcement officers in cases with an interstate-commerce nexus. Plaintiffs have up to 10 years to sue; prevailing plaintiffs can recover attorney and expert fees; the Attorney General must report on prosecutions under the new criminal provisions within three years.