Much has made about the lack of cooperation between federal immigration enforcement agents and Democratic state and local law enforcement officials regarding President Donald Trump's mass deportation efforts in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
On the same day the feds ended the surge of immigration agents in Minnesota, the Mississippi House passed House Bill 538.
Authored by Lee Yancey, a Republican from Brandon, the measure requires all state and local government entities and employees, including agencies, departments, officers, and law enforcement, to cooperate with federal and other governmental authorities in enforcing immigration laws.
Universities, community colleges, and various other political subdivisions would also be required to participate in federal immigration enforcement, if requested.
"We're taking a different stand than Minnesota, an entirely different stand," state Representative Randy Boyd tells AFN.
He says Mississippi recognizes that federal officers are not going after the legal immigrants.
"They're coming in to get illegal people out of Mississippi," he says. "They are going after the law breakers, and I believe that's what we need in America today; we need some people that stand up for Americans, and I think that's what Mississippi did. We want our people to cooperate."
House Bill 538 also expands Mississippi's ban on "sanctuary" jurisdictions.
"There are some cities that do harbor those tendencies, and if we don't make it a state law, they could hide those criminals that are here to keep them away from ICE," Boyd notes. "We just don't want that happening in Mississippi."
The House recently voted 77-40, mostly along partisan lines, to pass the measure.
All but one Democratic member, Karl Gibbs of West Point, opposed it. They argue the legislation would expose local Mississippi police officers to arrest if they tried to stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from engaging in illegal behavior and say it would rope a wide range of state government institutions into carrying out the federal government's immigration policy.
The chamber’s two independents, Angela Cockerham of Magnolia and Shanda Yates of Jackson, did not vote. No Republicans opposed the measure.
The Mississippi Senate is now considering the bill. Republicans no longer have a two-thirds supermajority majority there since Democrats flipped seats in recent elections, but they still maintain an overall majority.
