Backers of legislation that would criminalize transporting or sheltering undocumented immigrants in Wyoming this week sought to downplay fears sparked by the measure.
“When you’re not doing anything wrong in my eyes, you should have no fear of the law,” Cheyenne Republican Sen. Lynn Hutchings said in a Tuesday committee hearing on the bill.
But outside the statehouse, faith leaders and people in families with mixed-immigration status say Senate File 124, “Illegal immigration-identify, report, detain and deport,” in no uncertain language, criminalizes the day-to-day actions of legal citizens as much as it puts a target on undocumented immigrants.
“We are creating new crimes and incriminating U.S. citizens,” Sara Melendez said. The Cheyenne resident has been raising awareness about the dangers she sees in the bill. The ultimate effect will be driving undocumented immigrants underground, she said, creating further hardships and “and punishing those around them.”
As its name implies, the measure seeks to uncover undocumented immigrants in Wyoming. Proponents of the bill, which received a unanimous vote of approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee, say it will give the state tools to help the federal government root out and deport those here illegally.
The bill makes it illegal for a driver to knowingly transport someone in the country illegally. It also makes it illegal to “conceal, harbor or shelter from detection,” an undocumented immigrant. Though understandings of that language vary, at its broadest interpretation people fear the measure could criminalize having an undocumented person enter your home or sit in your church. Breaking the law would be a felony that could carry five years in prison or a $5,000 fine.
“Those clauses are intimidating us citizens and not actually enforcing immigration,” Melendez told WyoFile.
On Friday, the Senate Appropriations Committee heard the bill, which would draw $1 million from the state’s rainy-day savings account, the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account, and direct it to counties to offset the costs of training local officers in immigration enforcement, among other expenses.
The committee advanced the bill on a 3-2 vote, previewing what is likely a tough floor debate. Senate Minority Floor Leader Mike Gierau unsuccessfully sought to strip the appropriation from the bill. The Jackson Democrat represents a community with one of Wyoming’s most visible immigrant workforces.
“This is the most dangerous bill I’ve ever seen in the Legislature,” Gierau, who has served in the senate since 2019, said, “with the most dangerous ramifications.”
Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, backed the Democrat’s amendment and also voted against the bill. In a sign of growing opposition outside the Capitol, the hearing drew public commenters who asked the appropriators to kill it, though the committee’s function is mostly just to approve or modify the budget line.
“This bill would not only punish immigrants but also citizens and residents who offer their neighbors kindness,” Sophia Gomelsky, a University of Wyoming student and the student government’s director of government and community affairs, told the committee.
Public comment in favor of the bill has been scarce. Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, the Torrington Republican behind the measure, told the Senate Appropriations Committee the bill had been amended to reflect the concerns of law enforcement agencies, and her request for an appropriation continues that effort.
“If they have unintended expenses that ICE or Homeland Security does not cover then this would kick in,” she said of the reimbursement.
That message was echoed by committee member Cheyenne Republican Sen. Darrin Smith, who voted in favor of the bill. “We need to back law enforcement,” he said.
But Wyoming law enforcement’s view of the bill, and other legislative efforts like it, has been tepid at best. Sheriffs initially opposed the measure because it would have forced them to enter agreements with the federal government that might not fit every county, or even be desired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin with.
Law enforcement leaders were also skeptical of a clause in the bill that would have required officers to inquire about immigration status at every stop, Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police Executive Director Allen Thompson said. Lawmakers amended that clause out Tuesday. Thompson on Friday told WyoFile his organization remains neutral on the bill, which they did not ask Steinmetz to bring.
Community concerns
Public testimony this week, plus interviews conducted by WyoFile, show the Torrington senator’s measure has touched off fear among the immigrant community, civil liberty advocates and church leaders.
The bill could criminalize a person driving an undocumented person to the emergency room, American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming Advocacy Director Antonio Serrano told lawmakers. “I hope you can agree that immigrants regardless of immigration status should have access to medical care,” he said, while also noting the bill carried no exception for an ambulance driver who knows his or her patient is undocumented.
Among the emerging opponents of lawmakers’ general efforts to flex the state’s muscles against undocumented immigrants is the Catholic Diocese of Wyoming. When the Senate Judiciary Committee heard the bill on Tuesday, the Dioceses’ legislative liaison, Deacon Mike Leman, reiterated his earlier message to lawmakers that they should balance their concerns about illegal immigration with respect for the dignity of people who are already here.
“Human dignity does not wait for government-issued documents to arrive in the mail before manifesting itself,” he said.
Steinmetz’s measure was raising concerns in churches, not just Catholic ones, whose congregants see aiding vulnerable populations like migrants as part of their Christian practices, Leman said.
“There are many people around this state who are concerned that portions of this bill could violate their ability to exercise their religious freedom,” he said.
Rev. Emilio Cabrero, whose congregants at St. Josephs’ Catholic Church in Cheyenne are concerned about the bill, told WyoFile he shared such fears. “This is not only against somebody who has no documents but in general it’s limiting the rights of everyone in Wyoming,” Cabrero said.
Opponents also continue to worry about a clause in the bill that allows local law enforcement to investigate people’s immigration status. Though the bill no longer requires officers to interrogate people during a traffic stop about their lawful presence in the country, it still gives them the option to ask questions if they develop a “reasonable, articulable suspicion of a person’s illegal immigration status.”
“We all know who is going to be asked these questions,” Gomelsky, the UW student, said. “Historically these policies have led to racial profiling.”
The bill is now awaiting its first of three votes in the Senate. Some senators have indicated the chamber will consider amendments to strip out the provisions against transporting or sheltering undocumented immigrants. Steinmetz did not respond to a text message asking her disposition toward such amendments.
If that chamber approves the legislation, it will go to the House. There it will face another round of public comment in committee, but also may find a welcome reception among the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
National debate touches down
House leadership, who are all members of the caucus, expressed broad support for a crackdown during a discussion about immigration policies with reporters Friday. Speaking about a House bill to ban “sanctuary city” policies and punish local officials who refuse to cooperate with ICE, leadership said tolerance of illegal immigration degrades the nation’s character and wealth.
House Bill 133, “Sanctuary cities, counties and state-prohibition,” passed the lower chamber easily and is awaiting introduction in the Senate.
“It goes back to private property and our principles of making America a great country,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Bear said. That sentiment was echoed by House Speaker Pro Temp Jeremy Haroldson, a conservative pastor from Wheatland. Both are Freedom Caucus members.
“You cannot have an open border and a welfare state,” Haroldson said. “The thing that makes America great will be completely and utterly undermined by that concept.”
Across the Laramie range, a different pastor, Rev. Rob Spaulding of the Catholic St. Paul’s Newman Center, said such thinking pits immigrants against citizens under the assumption there isn’t enough to go around. It’s a fear that “someone is going to take what’s mine,” Spaulding said. “It’s the problem of a scarcity mindset — there’s not enough, and I have to protect what’s mine.”
Spaulding is among the pastors who worry Steinmetz’s bill means his church could no longer serve as a place of worship and sanctuary to undocumented people. Her bill is compounding fear sparked by President Donald Trump’s administration, which quickly repealed ICE guidance against agents entering churches, schools and other centers of civic life in pursuit of deporting people, he said. That repeal undid a decade of guidance against agents entering such places.
Back in the House offices, Haroldson tied migration to inaccurate but widely held worries of rising crime rates. “Look at the crime rates in America right now,” he said, suggesting that an increase was driven by criminals crossing the border.
National crime rates, both for violent and property crimes, continued to decline through the end of 2023, the most recent year for which the Federal Bureau of Information has published data. Since 1993, FBI data shows violent crime rates fell by 49% while property crime rates fell by 59%. Violent crime did start to spike back up during the pandemic, in particular through a spike in the murder rate. But the FBI’s most recent data release shows even the murder rate has since fallen back down.
Media and political attention have focused on specific instances of horrific crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, like the case of Laken Riley, who was murdered by a Venezuelan migrant who was caught entering the country illegally but released while his immigration case proceeded. He is now serving a life sentence.
But outside those cases, academic studies and research conducted by immigration advocacy groups have not found any link between migration and increased crime. In some cases, those studies have found evidence that statistically, immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S.-born citizens.
The Wyoming Legislature falls into a national trend of states on both sides of the growing political divide seeking to pass immigration laws, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said.
For red states, that’s a path toward increased deportations and enhanced enforcement. “States are starting to push the boundary to see how much authority local law enforcement can have,” she said.
For blue states, it’s creating legal pathways to assimilation, like access to a driver’s license or health insurance, since states cannot actually award citizenship.
That increasing divide could drive political polarization and also create a confusing mosaic of laws and enforcement for immigrants moving around the country, Putzel-Kavanaugh said. But since both red and blue states benefit from undocumented immigrants’ labor, it may also carry unforeseen economic impacts, particularly for labor-intensive industries like agriculture or hospitality.
“This is part of a larger pattern,” she said of Steinmetz’s proposal, “and I think that state by state we will start to see the impacts if these bills do pass — on the ground, economically and in other ways too.”
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