Undocumented students receiving in-state tuition at universities and colleges? Banned under legislation Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law. Selling agricultural land to a noncitizen? Forbidden, if Texas Republicans get their way. Enrolling a child in a public school? Only if the parents can prove their immigration status, according to a proposal in Oklahoma.
As United States President Donald Trump pushes forward with his campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, Republican governors and state lawmakers are lining up behind an ever-growing stack of anti-immigrant bills and measures, many of which rights groups insist are unconstitutional.
Republican state officials and legislators have rallied behind increasingly harsh anti-immigrant legislation for years, but since Trump promised to end the “invasion of our country” during his inauguration on Jan. 20, some have seized the moment to introduce even more severe legislation.
Many of the proposed bills, if passed, would require state and local agencies to cooperate with federal authorities like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), restrict sanctuary policies, and enhance penalties for undocumented people convicted of crimes.
According to a map the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) maintains, more than a dozen states have passed laws that targeted immigrants and, in some cases, the individuals and groups that advocate for them.
Sameera Hafiz, the ILRC’s policy director, said that the wave of state-level attacks on immigration “is very troubling,” explaining that around three-quarters of “enforcement actions stem from arrests made by local or state police or sheriffs.”
In other words, the drive to expand the state criminal legal system on immigration issues is part of a broad push “to capture more people for deportation,” Hafiz explained, while also “targeting the daily life of the immigrant community,” such as immigrants’ ability to drive or go to school or work safely.
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An estimated 11 million undocumented people live in the US, some 10% less than the peak undocumented population in 2007. Of that total, states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants include Nevada, California, New Jersey, and Texas. As state officials and legislators scramble to put forward anti-immigrant bills that align with Trump’s most severe policy proposals, Republicans in states like Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Florida are leading the charge.
Most immigration enforcement has typically fallen under the federal government’s jurisdiction thanks, in large part, to precedent stemming from several US Supreme Court rulings throughout the country’s history.
Precedent or not, state lawmakers have increasingly swamped legislatures with anti-immigrant bills since 2020, according to a report the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) published last year. In 2020, only 14 states considered anti-immigrant bills, but by 2024, that number had nearly tripled. Throughout the period the report covered, Republicans sponsored more than 97% of 561 anti-immigrant proposals, of which only around 12.5% were actually enacted.
Although the report concluded that “conservative states are more prolific in introducing anti-immigrant bills,” its authors explained that such bills are appearing in legislatures around the country. “The spread of anti-immigrant sentiment across the nation shows that neighboring states enacting such legislation can encourage others to follow suit,” the group noted, “illustrating a broader, more pervasive trend.”
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Tom Jawetz, a senior fellow on immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, has tracked the rise in anti-immigrant bills across the country in recent years. Although the latest flurry is not “the first time there’s been a wave” of such legislation, he said, “There is no question that there are lots and lots of bills in lots of different legislatures that have advanced.”
The way Jawetz sees it, the end goal of these bills might be to carve a path toward toppling the Supreme Court precedent on immigration. In 2012, Arizona v. United States ended with the court nixing some of the primary provisions in an Arizona state law that rights groups and other opponents argued, in effect, encouraged racial profiling.
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, cited that ruling in late 2023, while signing legislation that afforded additional powers to law enforcement on immigration. “We think that Texas already has a constitutional [right] to do this but we also welcome a Supreme Court decision that would overturn the precedent set in the Arizona case,” he said at the time.
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Since March 2021, Texas has been undertaking its own controversial immigration crackdown, Operation Lone Star, to the tune of more than $11 billion. Under that operation, state law enforcement and the Texas Military Department have carried out arrests in the borderlands and bussed immigrants to Democrat-run cities in other states. Rights groups say Operation Lone Star has led to widespread human rights violations.
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans have intensified a years-long push to flood the legislature with bills targeting immigrants. This year alone, several bills and joint proposals entered the legislature that, if passed, would strip both undocumented and documented migrants of key constitutional rights.
Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican and chair of the state Senate Finance Committee, recently put forward a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to mandate the denial of bail for any undocumented person facing a charge that could be punished as a felony.
In a press release, Huffman described the legislative package that includes the joint resolution as “common-sense, public safety-focused reforms,” adding that she was “fed up” with judges who release “violent, repeat offenders.”
In the Texas House, the “Dangerous Aliens Act” would increase penalties for undocumented people who irregularly cross the border if authorities can prove they have been convicted of a crime in the past — in any other state in the US or even in another country.
Stan Gerdes, the Republican state representative who filed the bill, said on the X social media platform that it “ensures that dangerous individuals face tougher penalties and are not allowed back on our streets to harm innocent Texans.”
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This recent barrage of bills in Texas is part of a years-long legislative effort that has put immigrants in its crosshairs. Two years ago, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 4, which allows state law enforcement to arrest and deport undocumented people. In December 2023, the city of El Paso and legal advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit challenging the law, and it will likely go to trial in July.
In response, the American Civil Liberties Union described that law as “one of the most extreme pieces of anti-immigrant legislation” to come out of any state legislature in the country.
Last November, a state executive order Governor Abbott signed went into effect, directing hospitals to compile information about the immigration status of patients. In a press release, Abbott said Texans should no longer have “to foot the bill for medical costs for individuals illegally in the state.”
The Texas Civil Rights Project responded by describing the move as “just another anti-immigrant policy aimed at inciting fear in our community,” pointing out that the move “could discourage migrants from seeking emergency medical care due to fear of being questioned about their immigration status.”
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In January, Florida state lawmakers passed a measure that requires every level of government to cooperate with federal authorities enforcing immigration. At the same time, Oklahoma’s Board of Education approved a plan to require parents to provide proof of their children’s immigration status in order to enroll them in public schools, though the state’s Republican governor says he will block the move. Tennessee’s legislature has also passed a salvo of anti-immigrant laws, among them one that could make it a felony for local officials to vote for sanctuary policies.
Yet, many of the harshest bills could die on the floors of state legislatures, others could face legal challenges in the courts, and lawmakers in some states. Federal courts, for instance, have also stymied some state legislation after it became law.
We’ve seen a Supreme Court that has been extremely activist and dismissive of longstanding precedent in recent years. – Tom Jawetz
One such case happened in Iowa. Last year, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that made it a crime for anyone who had undergone deportation in the past to reenter the country. The law even applied to people who reentered the US with legal permission. The American Immigration Council advocacy group described the law, whose authors largely modeled it off legislation in Texas, as “Iowa’s worst-ever immigration law.”
In late January, a federal appeals court upheld a federal district court’s decision that the Iowa law was unconstitutional and could not go into effect so long as litigation was ongoing.
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Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order that looks to get rid of birthright citizenship. Putting in place a preliminary injunction that spans the entire country, US District Court Judge Deborah Boardman said that the executive order “runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth.”
Still, some rights groups and advocacy organizations warn against solely relying on the courts to prevent the Republican overhaul of immigration policy. After all, Republican presidents appointed six of the nine justices on the US Supreme Court, and Trump picked three of those. “We’ve seen a Supreme Court that has been extremely activist and dismissive of longstanding precedent in recent years,” Jawetz of the Center for American Progress said.
Trump has meanwhile sparked broad criticism from rights groups after signing into law the Laken Riley Act, which expands mandatory detention for certain noncitizens and empowers state governments to sue the federal government over certain immigration issues.
The International Refugee Assistance Project insisted the Laken Riley Act “does not make anyone safer” and “is the direct result of political cowardice,” while the Immigration Law & Justice Network said “the law will result in the indefinite incarceration of immigrant children and the separation of families.”
While state legislatures and the federal government ramp up their campaigns to target immigrants, local communities could pay a large price. “Overall, there’s a huge chilling effect,” the ILCR’s Hafiz said. “It really does hurt the very communities these lawmakers are supposed to represent.”
