Updated October 31, 2024
Although immigration law is federal law, administered by federal agencies, it is state laws and state-powered machinery that drive immigration enforcement. Since the creation of the ‘Secure Communities’ program, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is automatically notified of every person taken into custody across the country – no matter on what basis, or pretext, they were arrested. This gives local law enforcement tremendous power to drive immigration enforcement. Over the last decade, 70-75% of ICE arrests in the interior of the U.S. have been handoffs from another law enforcement agency, be it a local or state jail or federal prison. It is therefore states, and their internal law enforcement and criminal legal systems, that power the mass detention and mass deportation system.
If Donald Trump succeeds to become the next President of the U.S., he has promised to dedicate massive federal resources to rounding up and deporting immigrants, with raids and sweeps in immigrant communities, especially ‘sanctuary cities.’ But whether he unleashes the National Guard or invokes the Alien Enemies Act or any of the other horrific measures his campaign has touted, the majority of people shunted into the deportation system will continue to be sent there from state and local law enforcement. That is the engine of the system that ICE has built over the last two decades, and on which the Trump campaign’s goals rest. Moreover, some states have aggressively expanded this engine with their own laws. Texas, for example, has already converted substantial portions of its criminal legal system to primarily focus on immigration enforcement issues. 2024, in particular, has seen several states invent new ways to weaponize their state criminal laws against immigrants. These states and their anti-immigrant political agenda will be further empowered if Trump becomes President again.
Meanwhile, most “blue” states, including states with some pro-immigrant state laws, do not actually have meaningful safeguards against a potential fascist and virulently anti-immigrant federal administration. Only Oregon and Illinois have comprehensive state laws restricting transfers of people to ICE; a few other states have substantial limitations, but still affirmatively transfer many immigrants directly from state and local officials to immigration detention. Most regions of the country where popular opinion is generally supportive of immigrants are nonetheless operating in a legal regime that materially supports mass detention and deportation. This map is an urgent call to action for elected officials who oppose the mass deportation agenda to take action and defend immigrant communities. We still have power to slow the gears of mass deportation.
For larger version of the map, click here.
The map represents the degree to which state policies limit or expand involvement in immigration enforcement, based on an analysis of current state laws and any litigation impacting state laws, as well as our own expertise in state and local laws and policies relating to immigration enforcement. It shows which states have gone the furthest in passing legislation that protects their communities, which have made significant steps, which have done nothing, which have prevented their localities from taking protective measures, and which have actively passed laws to collude with ICE in ways that significantly harm their residents.
We update the map regularly as the laws shift and grow.
Some states are clear leaders in offering protections for their immigrant residents and residents of color that are disproportionately harmed by biased policing, imprisonment, and deportation. States that have not enacted any laws regarding immigration enforcement are nonetheless often providing unnecessary, sometimes illegal and unconstitutional, assistance to ICE. Some states have gone to the other extreme, placing their communities at risk. They have passed laws punishing their own localities for passing sanctuary policies and undermined the impact of these protective policies. Some have also passed even more expansive, discriminatory and harmful policies that attempt to force state and local law enforcement to essentially become a de facto arm of the federal detention and deportation system. While some aspects of these policies have been struck down by federal courts and many are currently being litigated, others remain.
Despite the anti-immigrant fervor gripping many states and driving ever more punitive state law endeavors, more foreign-born residents are impacted by states with protective laws (23 million people) vs states with harmful laws (15 million people), with 17 million people residing in states that have passed no laws on immigration enforcement.
Explanation of Methodology and Legend
For this map, we analyzed 50 states and the District of Columbia for state sanctuary-related laws across 20 parameters. These parameters fell into five general categories: information and resource sharing with ICE, jail-to-ICE transfers, patrol officer collusion with ICE, contracts with ICE or U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and state criminalization laws. For explanation of these categories and the individual parameters, see the Appendix. States were given a numerical score ranging from 1-5 for each parameter, with “1” the most harmful and “5” the most protective. We also analyzed how litigation has changed the impact of state legislation. States that had passed laws that would have given them a score of “1” for most harmful were changed to “2” or somewhat harmful where successful litigation resulted in striking down or mitigating the harmful impact of the legislation. Where state laws simply reiterated federal laws that harm immigrants, we also gave them a “2” or somewhat harmful designation. We distinguish between state laws that require affirmative participation in immigration enforcement from those that preempt local sanctuary policies but do not mandate particular action. On the pro-sanctuary side, states that passed strong protective policies were given a “5” as most protective; those that had significant carve-outs or exceptions to these policies were given a “4” as somewhat protective. States that have no legislation or didn’t address a specific parameter were given a not applicable (“n/a”) score of “3”.
When averaged across all the parameters, two states had particularly strong and comprehensive laws protecting immigrants, and fell into the most protective category: Oregon and Illinois. 
Three other states also have fairly broad sanctuary statutes: California, New Jersey and Washington. Washington. Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and Vermont have also enacted some protections against their involvement in immigration enforcement. New York and Rhode Island have taken some small steps toward reducing immigration enforcement. On the other side, many states have enacted laws mandating some level of participation in immigration enforcement by local agencies: Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Two states have broad anti-sanctuary laws with significant negative effects for their immigrant residents: Alabama and Tennessee. Five states have particularly aggressive and comprehensive anti-sanctuary laws that force local agencies to be significantly involved in deporting their constituents: Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Texas and West Virginia. Although a number of these anti-sanctuary laws have been sharply limited by federal court decisions, many of their impacts remain in effect. In 2024, several states added new laws creating state deportation mechanisms and crimes defined entirely around being an undocumented immigrant present or entering the state, although these laws are for the time being held up in federal courts: Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.
The focus of this map is on state legislation, rather than executive orders, court decisions unrelated to litigation, or other non-legislative policies. We made two exceptions for New Jersey and Rhode Island. Because the New Jersey Constitution and its Criminal Justice Act provide for the Attorney General to direct all law enforcement and prosecuting agencies operating under the authority of the laws of the state, the Attorney General Law Enforcement Directive has expansive impact akin to legislation and was treated as such in our map. Rhode Island operates a unified correctional system whereby the Governor’s Executive Order directing its Department of Corrections impacts the only jail and prison in the state and was also treated as akin to legislation.
The map does not include or analyze immigration-related state laws that are not focused on immigration enforcement, such as funds for immigration legal services, access to drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants, in-state tuition for undocumented students, state benefits afforded to non-citizens, etc.
The Impacts of State Immigration Laws
The different state law regimes can determine results in real people’s lives, but they are just a rough approximation that does not speak to the broader impacts of these policies, nor to how carefully the laws are actually followed. Overpolicing of communities of color and vulnerable populations undermines safety for immigrants in sanctuary and non-sanctuary jurisdictions alike. But when local law enforcement agencies are not involved in deportations, immigrant communities are better integrated, more secure, and more involved. Their children are less likely to live in fear of losing a parent, mental health is improved, and access to justice is protected, while crime rates continue to fall. Until our federal lawmakers gather the political will to end the tyranny of our detention and deportation machine, the ILRC will continue to advise advocates, law enforcement, and elected officials across the nation on how to enact and improve sanctuary policies to protect our communities.
Further Background
Local involvement in immigration enforcement makes local agencies the gateway to deportation, co-opts local resources into questionable, racially discriminatory purposes, strips communities of any sense of safety, and undermines the rule of law.
There is no federal legal obligation for state and local jurisdictions to use their resources to help with immigration enforcement. But historically police and sheriff’s departments have often voluntarily assisted ICE, without even considering the legality or ramifications of their actions.
Following widespread advocacy and federal court rulings that ICE detainers (requests to have an individual held for transfer directly from local custody to immigration detention) are unconstitutional, hundreds of counties and cities stopped complying with these requests. And many have gone much further in shielding their local resources from entanglement in immigration enforcement. However, the majority of counties have still not caught on to the legal jeopardy they face by complying with ICE detainers, nor recognized the horrific implications for their immigrant residents. ILRC maintains a map of county-level policies on involvement with ICE here: www.ilrc.org/local-enforcement-map.
Amidst the controversy over Secure Communities and the refusal of many localities to transfer their residents to ICE, some politicians and pundits began using sanctuary policies as a scapegoat for all of society’s ills. Trump made attacking sanctuary policies one of the cornerstones of his 2016 campaign and a key domestic policy priority for his administration. Prior to Trump, Arizona and a few other copycat states passed expansive “show me your papers” anti-sanctuary legislation, essentially forcing its state and local law enforcement to act as an arm of federal immigration enforcement (which even the federal government at the time opposed). While the Supreme Court and other federal courts have struck down many of the unconstitutional aspects of these laws, other insidious provisions remained. More recent waves of anti-sanctuary legislation have skirted the provisions originally struck down by the courts, but added new harmful measures restricting localities from passing sanctuary policies and increasing other aspects of collusion between state and local law enforcement and ICE.
At the same time, states like California and Washington led the way on enacting protective laws, and more recently, Illinois and Oregon have shown what truly expansive protective policies can offer their residents. At the ILRC, we have seen tremendous success of sanctuary policies that disentangle local law enforcement from ICE, and we continue to craft, support, and advocate for those initiatives nationwide.
For press inquiries about this map, ILRC’s reports on sanctuary policies, or other ILRC information about immigration enforcement, contact Donna De La Cruz at media@ilrc.org. For more information about data underlying the map or assistance in starting a local campaign or joining national efforts, contact Lena Graber at lgraber@ilrc.org.
Additional Resources
For information on policies specific to local entanglement with ICE, see our map. For more details about policies regarding immigration enforcement and analysis of what our maps mean, see our reports reviewing the nature and expansion of sanctuary policies across the country: Growing the Resistance (2019); The Rise of Sanctuary (2018); and Searching for Sanctuary (2017).