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GALVANIZED BY TRUMP, THESE STATES ARE PASSING HARSH NEW LAWS AGAINST
IMMIGRANTS  
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Jill Castellano and Shoshana Walter
July 25, 2025
The Marshall Project
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_ The policies create new restrictions for immigrants and people who
support them — including reviving measures previously rejected by
courts. _

People hold signs during a demonstration, as part of nationwide
protests in solidarity with Los Angeles protests against federal
immigration sweeps, in Washington, D.C., June 10, 2025., Photo by
Nathan Howard/Reuters

 

_This story is part of “Trump Two: Six Months In
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series taking stock of the administration’s efforts to reshape
immigration enforcement and criminal justice._

When Alabama lawmakers passed a sweeping anti-immigration bill in
2011, backlash was swift. Immigrant advocates warned that Latinos
were fleeing the state
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fearing arrests for their status or for "harboring" undocumented
people. And some business leaders condemned the law after
police arrested German and Japanese car executives
[[link removed].] for
not having their licenses on them, a practice intended to funnel
undocumented people from police stops into deportation proceedings.

Civil rights groups sued, and courts overturned much of the law
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unconstitutional. Activists thought the effort was behind them. But
this year, it’s come roaring back. In May, Alabama established
a new crime
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transporting undocumented immigrants into the state.

Alabama is one of 37 states that have enacted a combined total of at
least 104 immigration-related laws in 2025, according to an analysis
of data from the National Conference of State Legislatures
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The laws reflect a nationwide crackdown on immigration galvanized by
the Trump administration, with dozens of statutes creating new
restrictions and penalties around employment, voting, education,
driver’s licenses, public benefits and other aspects of life for
non-citizens.

Republican-Led States Have Passed Most New Immigration Laws in 2025

States enacted dozens of new immigration-related statutes in 2025 that
increase policing and restrict voting and ID cards for non-citizens.

Lawmakers are paying special attention to the role of state and local
policing in immigration enforcement, passing at least 34 laws this
year that encourage these agencies’ cooperation with federal
authorities, criminalize aid to undocumented immigrants, create state
immigration enforcement bureaus and more. As of July, the number of
these new laws is more than double the tally of similar laws enacted
in all of 2024.

In at least four states — Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Idaho —
new strict anti-immigration laws are similar to ones in other states
that courts have already struck down for encroaching on federal
immigration enforcement. But Republican lawmakers and governors,
vowing support for President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda,
advanced the bills anyway.

These laws come at a time when legal scholars say the U.S. Supreme
Court could be more receptive to state anti-immigration statutes.

“I think it's possible that the Supreme Court is changing enough, or
has changed enough in terms of its makeup, there's going to be more
room for state criminal laws that are close to federal immigration
laws,” said Hiroshi Motomura, a law professor at the University of
California Los Angeles. “But who knows where that line is going to
be drawn.”

NCSL’s database includes
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amendments passed into law with a governor’s signature and
resolutions approved by a state legislature. Its tracking dates back
to 2008, allowing for comparison of similar laws over time.

When Frank Barragan, an organizer with the Alabama Coalition for
Immigrant Justice, learned that the state had passed a law mirroring
one that courts had already struck down, he said his “arms were full
of chills… it was sickening.”

Barragan said Alabama activists are preparing to support the state’s
200,000 foreign-born residents, but the challenges are greater now
than they were 14 years ago. “We're not fighting just the state of
Alabama,” he said. “We're fighting the entire administration.”

New laws passed in Tennessee and Alabama expand the scope of
immigration enforcement by targeting individuals and groups that
assist undocumented people.

As of May, charitable organizations in Tennessee that house
unauthorized immigrants can be held liable
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those tenants commit crimes. Another law
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prosecutors to charge people, including U.S. citizens, with felony
“human smuggling” if they conceal undocumented people from
authorities for “commercial advantage or private financial gain.”

“It’s just basically a way to make sure that Tennessee is not a
hospitable place for illegal aliens,” said Memphis State Sen. Brent
Taylor, who co-authored both laws. “If they want to operate and live
in this country, they should find another state.”

Immigrant rights groups sued in June
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arguing that the law is so broad that it criminally implicates family
members and roommates of current or formerly undocumented people, as
well as landlords, charities and houses of worship that offer migrants
shelter. The law went into effect on July 1 and remains active while
legal challenges continue.

Taylor co-authored another law facing legal pushback. Senate Bill
6002
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Tennessee prosecutors to charge elected officials with felonies and
face 1–6 years in prison for voting in favor of “sanctuary city”
policies that seek to protect immigrants from deportation. In
an ongoing federal lawsuit
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the American Civil Liberties Union said this is “the first known
instance in American history where a state has imposed felony
liability on local officials simply for the viewpoint expressed in
their votes.”

Few precedents exist for the laws passed in Tennessee and Alabama this
year. In one example from 2023, Florida amended its human smuggling
statute to include the transportation of immigrants lacking legal
status. An injunction on the law
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in place. A lawsuit has yet to be filed against Alabama’s similar
bill, which goes into effect in October.

[A photograph of a White man in his late 70s wearing a red hat with
the words "Gulf of America" and a suit. He is seen through an
out-of-focus chainlink fence and is looking to the side. Behind him
there are rows of bunk beds behind another chainlink fence. ]

President Donald Trump tours a migrant detention center at the
Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, on
July 1, 2025. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Other new laws create crimes specifically targeting undocumented
immigrants, in a way that critics say gives people criminal records to
more easily justify their deportation.

Trump has pledged to deport “the worst of the worst,” yet most
people that ICE detains have no criminal convictions
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But new state laws in Florida and Idaho criminalize immigrants just
for being undocumented.

Under federal law, entering the country without authorization is a
misdemeanor offense that historically has been rarely charged. Being
present in the country without proper documentation, including
overstaying a visa, is a civil violation rather than a crime. Visa
overstays are estimated to be the most common form
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In March, Florida enacted Senate Bill 4-C
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which goes further than federal law by creating a new crime for
entering the state as an undocumented person, with a minimum penalty
of nine months in jail. A similar recent law from Idaho
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crimes for illegal entry into the state and for trafficking migrants
across the border. A federal judge blocked it in April.

Adam Cox, an immigration law professor at New York University, said
the new laws let police arrest undocumented people who have committed
no other crime in the state. “It allows the state that the local cop
is in to say, ‘Aha, there's a state crime I can now arrest you for
that’s going to put you in the deportation pipeline.’”

If courts eventually uphold these laws, it would effectively expand
the immigration enforcement network down to beat cops on traffic duty.

Judges have blocked similar laws in four other states in the past two
years, relying on a 2012 Supreme Court decision in Arizona v. United
States [[link removed]] that
reinforced the authority of the federal government — not states —
to oversee immigration enforcement. But in a more recent 2020
decision, Kansas v. Garcia [[link removed]],
the Supreme Court allowed Kansas to criminally charge non-citizens for
filing false tax forms, even though a similar federal offense exists.

Civil rights groups sued Florida over its new law, and a federal judge
blocked police and prosecutors from enforcing it while the case
continues. But amid defiant directives
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the Florida attorney general, some officers continued making
immigration arrests for more than a month. At least 27 people were
arrested after the judge’s order, a recent Marshall Project
investigation found.

Among them was Juan Aguilar
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who got into a fender bender in late May, was arrested by deputies,
transferred to ICE custody and deported in a little over one week. By
the time the court corrected its error, he was already in Mexico.

“Not everyone who is there is a criminal; a lot of us are good
people,” Aguilar told The Marshall Project in Spanish. “But they
treat us all the same.”

States are also passing new laws that ramp up cooperation between
police and federal immigration officials.

On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order
[[link removed]] expanding
the 287(g) program [[link removed]],
which allows police to partner with federal immigration authorities by
joining task forces, administering warrants or transferring detainees
from local jails to federal custody. Since then, eight states have
enacted laws encouraging or requiring participation in the program,
and more than 600 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have signed
new partnership agreements, according to a Marshall Project analysis
of data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In New Hampshire, Belknap County Sheriff William Wright was the first
sheriff in the state to enter into such a partnership, which began in
February. Wright described it as “another tool in the toolbox” for
deputies, who can now detain people who have federal immigration
warrants against them. Now, 12 law enforcement agencies in New
Hampshire have entered into the federal agreements.

The Marshall Project found at least eight states, including New
Hampshire, that banned sanctuary policies this year. Meanwhile, five
Democrat-led states passed laws restricting cooperation with
immigration authorities or banning their entry into schools and other
locations.

New Hampshire state Rep. Ross Berry, a Republican from Hillsborough
who co-authored the state’s sanctuary ban, said his constituents are
blue-collar workers struggling with inflation and competing against
undocumented immigrants for work. Berry said his immigration policies
are popular among his voters.

“My electorate loves it,” he said. “I’ll definitely be putting
it out there when I run for re-election.”

Not all law enforcement leaders agree that immigration enforcement
aids their work. The police chief in Hollis, New Hampshire, spoke out
against the state’s anti-sanctuary law
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opening up officers to liability and hurting police-community
relations. He retired before the bill was enacted.

In La Vergne, Tennessee, police said the aggressive immigration
efforts are scaring people away from calling for help during
emergencies. In May, a six-month-old died
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the baby’s caregiver, an undocumented person, was too afraid to
contact emergency services, according to La Vergne Police Chief
Christopher Moews.

“If I have people who are afraid to come forward and provide a
witness statement to a shooting or a robbery, or even report a sexual
abuse of a child, or things of that nature, because of their
documentation status, that is not helping out public safety here,”
he said.

Even if courts eventually strike down the states’ latest
anti-immigration laws, groups that advocate for immigrants’ rights
said the new measures send a signal to undocumented people, their
families and their communities. “It doesn't matter if you've built a
life here,” explained Stephanie M. Alvarez-Jones, an attorney with
the National Immigration Project. “It doesn't matter if you've
contributed to your community, or local economy, or the state economy.
You are not safe and you are not welcome.”

The laws also draw a link between immigrants and criminality, even
though research shows that undocumented people commit crimes at lower
rates than the general public
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and data does not support
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of migrant crime waves.

Immigration attorneys and activists across the U.S. told The Marshall
Project that their clients increasingly fear being profiled for their
skin color
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accent, even if they are lawful U.S. residents. As a result, many
immigrants are staying indoors, refusing to drive, skipping work or
leaving Republican-majority states altogether.

“They are mean and miserable statutes,” said Carlos Torres, policy
director at the Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama, in reference
to the new laws. “They are not really looking to empower our
community, but instead, are trying to cut the wings of people who can
actually be very productive and who are here in community with us.”

* anti-immigrant
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* laws
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* Red States
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