Mississippi public offices, cities and law enforcement agencies may soon have a State mandate to cooperate with ICE if agents come to Mississippi to enforce federal immigration laws under legislation the Mississippi Legislature is preparing to send to Gov. Tate Reeves.
House Bill 538, a bill that will require Mississippi public agencies at all levels to cooperate with ICE agents in enforcing federal immigration laws, passed the Senate on Tuesday after an amendment struck language that would have waived sovereign immunity for violations of the bill.
“I think the overwhelming intent of this legislation is to have cooperation,” Mississippi House Judiciary A Chairman Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, said on the House floor the day the chamber passed H.B. 538, Feb. 12.
Senate Bill 2114, which criminalizes illegal immigration and empowers the Mississippi Department of Public Safety collect identifying information about any undocumented immigrants in the state, also passed the House—but only after the House Judiciary A Committee introduced a strike-all amendment, scrapping the bill’s original language and replacing it with the text of H.B. 538.
Both bills now return to their respective chamber of origin for consideration after receiving support from Republicans in both chambers and criticism from Democrats. Because S.B. 2114 has been amended to be a duplicate of H.B. 538, only one of the bills needs to pass a final round of voting before heading to Gov. Tate Reeves for his signature. The chambers could also come together to negotiate a final version of the preferred bill.
Mississippi Senate Democrats did not question or debate H.B. 538 before its passage. Minority Leader Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, told the Mississippi Free Press that not debating House bills is common when the Senate already passed a similar bill. But he also said Democrats made their decision to vote against the bill before the Senate introduced the legislation on Tuesday.
“We had a similar bill that came up on the Senate side, and when you get to this point in the session, there’s really no need to actually debate the bill again,” he told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday. We already know how we’re going to vote on it.”
Provide ‘Information on All Aliens Within the State’
H.B. 538 amends an existing law that bans sanctuary cities in the state by adding requirements for every Mississippi state agency, department, municipality, county, institution of higher learning and law enforcement agency to comply with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bill says they would have to provide “information on all aliens within the state when requested by federal and other state and local government agencies, departments and law enforcement officials.”
The legislation says the state agencies would have to obey “immigration detainer requests,” which is when ICE asks for local jails to hold people for an extra 48 hours after the initial detention period. This includes requiring local law enforcement to detain immigrants at local jails.
The bill also gives the Mississippi attorney general the authority to investigate and prosecute any entity that does not comply with the provisions of H.B. 538.
Under an amendment, the Senate removed lines 49 through 56 of the bill to remove some “problematic” language regarding sovereign immunity that had raised alarms with local officials, Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, said when introducing H.B. 538 on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
The removed lines say, “Any agency or department of this state; county, municipality or any other political subdivision of this state; university, college, community college or junior college; and any agent, employee, officer or law enforcement agency thereof in violation of this section shall be subject to a waiver of sovereign immunity in all matters relating to the violation of this section to the extent allowed by and subject to the provisions of Section 11-46-1.”
Fillingane said his amendment also deletes Section 2 of the legislation because that portion unnecessarily pulls forward a code section.
For the most part, the federal government has the power to enforce immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that federal laws preempt state laws on immigration, including the imposition of state-level penalties that run parallel with federal penalties.
‘Enforcement of Lawful Federal Immigration.’
Under the original language of Senate Bill 2114, Mississippi would criminalize illegal immigration under State law and allow the Mississippi Department of Public Service to collect identifying information about any undocumented immigrants in the state after the Legislature passed.
Undocumented immigrants who illegally enter the state by a plane or boat from another country could face imprisonment for at least two years under S.B. 2114. Hill said the goal of her legislation is to align State law with federal law.
Mississippi S.B. 2114 also codifies the Department of Public Safety’s participation in the federal 287(g) program, which allows local and state law enforcement to work under the supervision of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, to “remove illegal immigrants,” Hill said.
When the Senate passed the bill, several Democrats asked questions and debated the bill with Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, who defended it.
The House Judiciary A Committee’s strike-all amendment to S.B. 2114 replaces the bill with the language of H.B. 538. The House passed the amended S.B. 2114 on Tuesday and now the bill will return to the Senate, which will decide whether to concur with the changes or invite conference to hash out a final version of the legislation.
When the House passed H.B. 538 on Feb. 12, several Democratic representatives had concerns about certain language in the legislation. Line 25 of H.B. 538 says that state agencies and employees may not interfere with or disrupt “the enforcement of federal immigration laws.” Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, presented an amendment to add “unlawfully” before “interferes” on line 25, “lawful” before “enforcement” on line 25 and “illegal” before “aliens” on line 46. Scott coauthored the amendment. The House voted against the amendment, so the language was not added to the bill.
During the House’s discussion of S.B. 2114 on March 10, Rep. Bob Evans, D-Monticello, asked House Judiciary A Chairman Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, if the chairman added clarification that local agencies must only cooperate with lawful enforcement of federal immigration laws.
“Did you add—or did the committee or whoever did this add—any language where dealing with local law enforcement having to cooperate with ICE that cooperation would be only with legal things that ICE were doing?” Evans asked. “Was any language added to address that issue?”
“I did insert into the bill, and I apologize to the body that I didn’t bring that up,” Hood responded. “On line 23 of the amendment, I did say, ‘limits, restricts, bans or interferes with enforcement of lawful federal immigration.’ So I did insert the word ‘lawful.’”
Sen. Derrick Simmons told the Mississippi Free Press that Senate Democrats are opposed to both immigration bills that the Legislature passed.
“It is a concern when the State tries to engage what is certainly preempted by federal law,” he said. “And so, as Democrats, we stood firmly against it when we had a Senate version, and so we voted against the House version as well.”