Mississippi law could create statewide registry of undocumented immigrants

A new Mississippi law set to take effect this week will allow the state’s top law enforcement agency to compile a list of all illegal immigrants living in the state, alarming immigrant advocates who fear it could be a new tool to target immigrants as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.

The law, which will go into effect on Wednesday, states that the state Department of Public Safety “may use all reasonable lawful investigative means available” to determine the number of illegal immigrants residing in Mississippi and their identities, including by collecting their names, addresses, country of origin and whether they are an adult or child.

The department may also list any criminal history and the date, location and status of deportation proceedings.

The agency is instructed to share information on immigrants suspected of violating laws with state and local authorities.

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The law does not expressly require or prohibit sharing the database with federal immigration authorities, though other provisions of SB 2114 require the Department of Public Safety and county detention agencies to attempt cooperation agreements with ICE under Section 287(g).

State Sen. Angela Hill, a Republican who sponsored the bill, argued that states have a right and obligation to assist the federal government in stopping illegal immigration, which she claims contributes to crimes such as human and drug trafficking.

Hill said the new measure “seems like commonsense to me.”

“In order to address the problems caused by illegal immigration, we need to understand the magnitude of the problem. Identifying the number and identity of illegal aliens in Mississippi is a concrete way to better understand the problem,” she said.

The Mississippi law authorizes an ongoing effort to keep track of immigrants illegally in the state for the next two years, which could include people who overstay visas.

Immigrant advocates warn that the law could complicate things in Mississippi as people overstay visas, apply for new forms of legal status and move into and out of the state.

“You can be undocumented today, and then have status tomorrow, and then lose it again next month, and then regain it three months from now,” Efrén Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income immigrants, told The Associated Press.

“It’s practically unworkable, but it’s also very worrisome, because it’s eerily reminiscent of other countries that have created lists of certain groups of people,” Olivares added.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit think tank that supports immigration restrictions, said state officials must come up with “a credible and fairly foolproof way of correctly determining someone’s immigration status.”

However, Vaughan argued the law “makes a lot of sense,” saying that it “raises the likelihood that someone’s illegal presence is going to come to the attention of federal authorities.”

Mississippi has one of the country’s smallest percentages of illegal immigrants with fewer than 28,000 people, which amounts to less than 1% of its population, according to the American Immigration Council, citing 2023 Census Bureau data.

Victoria Francis, deputy director of state and local initiatives for the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of immigrants, warned that the law has the potential to redirect law enforcement resources away from protecting the public in favor of investigating immigrants who may be contributing to the economy.

“A mandate like this invites profiling and turning entire communities into targets,” Francis told The Associated Press.

American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi’s policy and advocacy manager, Lydia Grizzell, added that the law could harm the trust between police and residents.

“That increases the likelihood of individuals not reaching out to law enforcement when it’s needed – and that is opposite of the mission,” she said.

More than 100 immigration-related laws have been adopted in states across the country this year.

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Republican-led states have sought to support Trump’s immigration crackdown by requiring local sheriffs to sign cooperative agreements with ICE, reinforcing eligibility restrictions for public benefits and instructing election clerks to check voter rolls against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system in an effort to identify noncitizens.

Mississippi’s new law appears to be similar to a 2021 executive order by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to “use all lawful investigative means available” to determine the number and identities of all “illegal aliens” who had been transported from the nation’s southwest border to Florida during the border crisis under the Biden administration.

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Meanwhile, blue states have attempted to limit Trump’s immigration raids, including by banning cooperative pacts with ICE, prohibiting ICE from wearing masks to shield their identities and barring immigration arrests in schools, hospitals and other sensitive locations without judicial warrants.

At the federal level, the Trump administration has increased enforcement of a decades-old law that requires noncitizens to register with the U.S. government.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.