Immigration enforcement bill moves through House

BOISE — The Idaho House on Monday passed a Texas-style immigration bill that would allow local law enforcement and judges to get more involved in immigration enforcement.

House Bill 83 passed 61-9, along party lines, after very little debate. The bill is modeled after a Texas law that has been blocked from going into effect; the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing its constitutionality.

The bill would create a new crime of illegal entry into the state, the second offense of which would trigger deportation.

Based on the costs to transfer inmates through the Idaho Department of Correction and to incarcerate people in jails and prisons, bill sponsor Rep. Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, estimated the cost to the state next fiscal year would be $1 million.

Crane said that, under the Trump administration so far, “about 3,500 people have been rounded up, so to speak, a week, that’s going to be 182,000 people a year.”

“So what the federal governments are needing from us is to put forth an effort with our law enforcement agencies here in the state to assist them in this illegal immigration issue,” Crane said.

The illegal entry charge would only apply if the person was “investigated for, charged with, or convicted” of another crime.

The first offense of “illegal reentry” of the state, which is when a person is found in Idaho after they had been denied admission, deported or removed, would be a misdemeanor; it would be a felony if the removal was after a conviction on two or more misdemeanors involving drugs, crimes against a person or both. The second offense would be a felony, and a magistrate judge would be required to order their deportation.

The bill is the second version introduced this session and an amended version of a bill passed in the House last session. Crane and co-sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, said this version had amendments made in response to concerns from the Idaho Dairymen’s Association and the members in the construction industry.

More than 90% of the dairy workers in Idaho are foreign-born, the Idaho Dairymen’s Association has said, and the industry doesn’t have an avenue to seek workers through the seasonal worker H-2A visa program. It’s also estimated that around 50% of the agricultural workforce nationwide are in the country illegally.

Skaug said the changes include the fact that the people charged with the “illegal entry” crime must be at least suspected of another crime.

“So if somebody gets pulled over for a traffic ticket, that’s an infraction, that’s not considered a crime,” Skaug said. “So why this is positive to me, is this isn’t going after people that don’t look like us or don’t speak our language. This is going after people who are involved potentially or possibly or probably in crimes.”

The legislation would also provide civil immunity to law enforcement, local government employees or contractors against lawsuits that could stem from attempted enforcement under the bill, unless they acted “in bad faith, with conscious indifference, or with recklessness.”

Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, was the only one to debate the bill. He argued that it was “questionably constitutional,” and that it could drive up public defense expenses.

The Texas law that is still being litigated was challenged by the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden as well as the ACLU of Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, and other civil rights groups, which argued it interfered with federal immigration laws.

The ACLU of Idaho sent out a statement Monday that it is strongly opposed to the bill, and called it “unconstitutional and harmful.”

“Criminalizing the mere presence of undocumented individuals without legal or work authorization is deplorable and heavily steeped in racism,” Ruby Mendez-Mota, ACLU of Idaho campaign strategist, said in the emailed statement. “The bill sponsors claim that bills like H.B. 83 only target people who have already allegedly committed crimes, but history shows that the application of laws like this only serves to foster false allegations and racial profiling. Our community is tired and angry at being labeled criminals deserving of suspicious scrutiny for simply living and working in Idaho. It is textbook racism, and we deserve better.”

The bill heads to the Senate, where another bill has been introduced that would create new state-level crimes for being in Idaho illegally.

Senate Bill 1039 targets people in Idaho who are found to be in the country illegally and who have committed a “dangerous crime,” which is defined in the bill with a list of crimes, including aggravated assault, manslaughter, kidnapping, robbery, trafficking, any offense that would require a sex offender registration, among others.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.

How they voted

Yes: Kyle Harris-R, Dale Hawkins-R, Lori McCann-R, Brandon Mitchell-R, Heather Scott-R, Charlie Shepherd-R