A group of Idaho lawmakers have unveiled a slate of immigration proposals, crafted in tandem with Theo Wold, a former Donald Trump administration official and former Idaho solicitor general.
The proposals include bills that would require tracking the number of undocumented inmates in jails and prisons, and the number of undocumented students in public schools, and require local law enforcement to enter 287(g) agreements with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
There would also be bills to require financial information and audits of the private nonprofit Idaho Office for Refugees, require employers to use the immigration-status-checking software E-Verify, and create a new crime for organizations that are “concealing, harboring or shielding” people in the country illegally.
Nampa Republican Sen. Brian Lenney, one of the lawmakers spearheading the effort, said the issue of immigration was related to human rights. He wanted to take a look at various means of immigration, including legal avenues via short-term work visas or refugee resettlement.
“When we’re talking about immigration, it’s a human rights issue,” he said at an event Tuesday to unveil the proposals. “… This is about demographic replacement, and they’re doing that via refugee resettlement programs, human trafficking and cheap slave labor.”
The text of the bills wasn’t made available at the event. As of Friday, only one of the proposals was scheduled for introduction in a committee. A bill on reporting aggregated numbers of students’ immigration status was scheduled to be introduced in the House Education Committee today.
The ACLU of Idaho condemned the bills in an emailed statement to the Idaho Capital Sun on Thursday.
“Despite growing national disapproval of the current administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, Idaho’s lawmakers insist on continuing their relentless attack against immigrants living and working in our state,” ACLU of Idaho spokesperson Rebecca De León said. “These anti-immigrant bills, borrowed from other states where they have already caused serious harm, do nothing to move Idaho forward.”
Lawmakers hope to garner public support to move proposals forward
Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood, and Lenney hosted the event Tuesday in hopes to rally support from the public and apply pressure on legislative chairmen to hold hearings.
“We have some chairmen that are ready and willing; we have others that are resistant,” Hawkins said in an interview. “And we’re hoping that, when they see the movement of the folks who we’re supposed to be working for, we can get a little bit better movement than we’ve gotten in the past.”
The Sun spoke to chairmen from House and Senate State Affairs and Judiciary and Rules committees, and as of Friday, none of the lawmakers had seen any of these bill proposals in their committees yet. Whether to hold a bill hearing is up to the discretion of the chair.
At Tuesday’s event, several Republican lawmakers stood alongside Hawkins and Lenney, including Reps. Clint Hostetler of Twin Falls, Kyle Harris of Lewiston, Steve Tanner of Nampa, Cornel Rasor of Sagle, Elaine Price of Coeur d’Alene, Tony Wisniewski of Post Falls, Heather Scott of Blanchard, and David Leavitt of Twin Falls.
They were also joined by Sens. Phil Hart of Kellogg, Tammy Nichols of Middleton, Josh Kohl of Twin Falls, and Glenneda Zuiderveld of Twin Falls.
Idaho bills have been in the works last couple of years
Hawkins and Lenney said they’ve been working with Wold since around 2023 on many of these proposals. Wold served under the first Trump administration as a deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. He currently is a senior counselor at the tech company Palantir and a visiting fellow with the influential national conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm, Heritage Action, held an event in Boise in October to discuss some of the legislative proposals and immigration issues, the Idaho Capital Sun reported. Wold was a panelist, alongside Lora Ries, director of Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and former Department of Homeland Security acting deputy chief of staff under the first Trump administration.
Some of the bills were introduced last session, but did not advance. Hawkins introduced the bill to make it a crime to knowingly conceal, transport or help someone who is living in the country illegally. The House Judiciary and Rules Commission voted to hold it, and it did not move forward in the process.
Rep. Steve Tanner last year proposed a bill to require reporting of students’ immigration status, but it died in the House Education Committee, Boise State Public Radio reported.
Hawkins noted that a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevents public schools from denying children of undocumented immigrants, but he wants the state to know the costs to do so.
Unauthorized immigrants are key players in Idaho’s economy, agricultural sector, study shows
“If the federal government is requiring us to educate, then the federal government should be paying for us to do it,” Hawkins said at Tuesday’s event.
He said the bill wouldn’t require personnel information to be included, just the total numbers.
Lenney disagreed with the pushback past proposals have evoked, such as arguments that they would hurt Idaho industries such as agriculture, construction and the service industry — many of which rely on migrant labor.
“Bottom line for me is, and for us, and a lot of people up here … I think the overwhelming majority of Idahoans want to put an end to the pillaging of our state by foreign nationals, both legal and illegal,” Lenney said.
In the statement from the ACLU of Idaho, De León wrote that the bills would garner fear among immigrant workers and residents.
“Immigrants power Idaho’s economy and shoulder the state’s more difficult blue collar jobs,” she wrote. “Yet lawmakers persist in pushing policies that deliberately create fear and instability, making it harder for families to live, learn, and thrive.”
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.