Sponsors (18)
The bill centralizes legal authority and federal financial responsibility for local compliance with ICE detainers and rewards cooperating jurisdictions with federal development funds, but it limits immigrants' legal remedies, incentivizes local enforcement that can erode community trust and public safety, and penalizes or burdens 'sanctuary' areas through funding losses and administrative complexity.
State and local officers who comply with ICE detainers gain clarified federal authority and federal indemnification—the United States is substituted as the defendant and the FTCA is the exclusive remedy—concentrating defense and potential payouts at the federal level rather than multiple local governments.
Local and state officials cooperating with federal immigration enforcement receive clearer authority to obtain immigration-status information from jurisdictions defined as non‑sanctuary, reducing ambiguity about information-sharing.
Jurisdictions may decline to honor or share detainers for people who come forward as victims or witnesses, preserving a narrow protection intended to encourage cooperation with law enforcement.
Immigrants detained under ICE detainers face reduced access to state- or local-level remedies and narrower avenues for civil-rights or constitutional claims because lawsuits are limited to the FTCA against the federal government, making relief harder to secure.
The bill creates strong incentives and penalties that push jurisdictions to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, increasing local involvement in immigration policing, eroding trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement, and risking reduced crime reporting and community safety.
Jurisdictions designated as 'sanctuary' risk losing EDA and CDBG grants or being required to return funds, which would reduce housing, community development, and infrastructure projects and harm low‑income residents, renters, homeowners, workers, and small businesses.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Conditions certain EDA and CDBG federal grants on cooperation with federal immigration detainer/notification requests and designates noncooperative jurisdictions as ineligible.
Introduced February 24, 2025 by Rafael Edward Cruz · Last progress February 24, 2025
Treats state and local officials who honor certain ICE detainers as acting on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security and substitutes the United States as the defendant for civil suits arising from that compliance, while preserving liability for knowing civil or constitutional rights violations. Defines “sanctuary jurisdiction” as a state or locality that bars or restricts sharing immigration status information or refuses to comply with DHS detainer or notification requests (with a narrow victim/witness exception). Bars Economic Development Administration and many Community Development Block Grant funds from going to jurisdictions designated as sanctuary jurisdictions, requires return and reallocation of funds obtained while so designated, and makes the grant-related amendments effective October 1, 2025.