Lawmakers in the Kentucky General Assembly are taking aim at local governments that limit cooperation between local police and jails and federal immigration agencies, including Louisville Metro.
House Bill 213 and House Bill 344 would outlaw what sponsors call “sanctuary policies.” Those include directives to police departments and local government employees not to ask people about their immigration status, as well as preventing officers from participating in raids targeting people suspected of being in the country illegally.
State Rep. T.J. Roberts is one of the sponsors of HB 213. The Boone County Republican said he wants to “revive the fight to ban sanctuary cities in Kentucky” as President Donald Trump begins his mass deportation effort.
“If there is even one sanctuary city or sanctuary county in Kentucky, it de facto turns Kentucky into a sanctuary state,” Roberts told LPM News.
The bill is aimed at cities and counties in Kentucky that ICE classified as “limited cooperation” or "non-cooperative" jurisdictions in a June 2024 memo. They include Jefferson, Scott, Campbell and Franklin Counties.
Roberts’ bill would also allow victims of violent crime or their families to sue local governments with sanctuary policies, if the perpetrator was living in the country illegally and they were previously released from custody before ICE could pick them up.
A separate bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Jared Bauman of Louisville, has a similar goal of nullifying local policies that limit immigration enforcement.
HB 344 would require cities and counties to work on an agreement with ICE for holding people suspected of being in the country illegally. That bill would also allow victims to sue local governments, and it goes a step further in threatening state road funding for cities and counties that don’t comply.
Bauman said in a press release Wednesday that HB 344 would be “our commonwealth’s promise to uphold federal law and to support federal law enforcement agencies.”
“Above all, we are committed to supporting federal law enforcement agencies as they pursue illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes against innocent Kentuckians and pose an active safety threat to our communities,” he said.
The Trump administration has framed its immigration crackdown as an effort to deport violent criminals. A recent analysis from NBC News cast doubt on that claim, finding that nearly half of people detained by ICE on January 26 had no criminal record.
Louisville Metro officials maintain that the policy for how LMPD works with immigration agents, enacted in 2017, does not make it a sanctuary city. And opponents of the proposed House bills are concerned that increased cooperation will only amplify confusion and fear in Kentucky’s immigrant and refugee communities.
Everything old is new again
This isn’t the first time local governments and the Kentucky General Assembly have been at odds over immigration enforcement.
More than seven years ago, Louisville Metro Council had a long and contentious debate over a proposed ordinance that set out guidelines for how much local police officers should participate in an enforcement effort many saw as a federal responsibility.
Council Member Brandon Coan, a District 8 Democrat, was the main sponsor of the ordinance.
“Its primary purpose is to make clear that local law enforcement is separate from federal, civil immigration law enforcement,” Coan told his colleagues at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2017.
The ordinance, which passed on a 16-7 vote, stops LMPD from participating in ICE raids unless there is a threat of violence. Louisville police officers can’t detain people for living in the country illegally, unless ICE agents have a criminal warrant. And the ordinance also makes clear that city employees can’t ask residents about their immigration status if it’s not necessary for the service or resource they are trying to access.
The ordinance was a response to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown during his first term in office. A report from the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting that detailed how LMPD assisted ICE in making numerous arrests had also sparked backlash from some residents and immigrant rights groups.
Council Member Rick Blackwell, a District 12 Democrat, said at the meeting he was concerned immigrants in Louisville would be discouraged from reporting a crime or sending their kids to school.
“We want everyone in our community to feel comfortable in our community and participate in our community and be a good citizen,” Blackwell said.
Many Republicans on the council, however, expressed concerns about the policies. District 18’s Marilyn Parker questioned whether the ordinance complied with federal law.
“I’m also concerned that this does send out a beacon call for our city, for more to come, and it puts our city on the hook for more social services expenditures,” Parker said during the meeting.
At the time, supporters of the ordinance were adamant that it didn’t make Louisville a sanctuary city. A 2018 review by Trump’s Department of Justice affirmed that view.
What would change?
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, asked about Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown, reiterated last week that Kentucky’s largest city is not a sanctuary city. Greenberg said “anyone who commits violent crimes in our city must face serious consequences.”
“At the same time, we want LMPD to be focused on preventing violent crime from happening here in our city, so that will continue to remain LMPD's policy, just as it has since 2018,” he said.
Greenberg has not said whether he opposes HB 213 and HB 344.
If passed, the bills would make most or all of Louisville’s 2017 ordinance illegal.
Roberts’ bill, HB 213, defines sanctuary policies broadly to include any limit on cooperation or communication between local law enforcement and ICE agents. The bill would likely nullify Louisville’s policies preventing public employees, including police officers, from asking someone their immigration status and preventing police from providing backup on immigration raids where there is no safety threat.
Both HB 213 and HB 344, sponsored by Bauman, would outlaw any limits on local police and jails complying with “immigration detainers,” which are requests from ICE to hold a person suspected of living in the country illegally for up to 48 hours. Currently, LMPD does not arrest, detain or transport people with civil or administrative immigration warrants. They only act if a person has a criminal warrant.
HB 344 goes beyond just outlining what cities and counties can’t do. It would require all local governments in Kentucky to pursue written cooperation agreements with ICE.
Officials in Scott County – which previously had a limited cooperation policy – say they’ve already updated their policies to be fully cooperative with federal immigration enforcement.
Scott County Judge/Executive Joe Pat Covington said in an email that officials reached an agreement with Oldham County last November that allows for them to transfer people with immigration detainers to the Oldham County Jail, which has an existing contract with ICE.
“There is no policy in the Detention Center SOP’s that would not support ICE detainers,” Covington said. “To categorize Scott County as a ‘sanctuary county’ is categorically false.”
Jailer Derran Broyles said the ICE memo from June that showed Scott County as “non-cooperative” was issued before the policy change. Broyles said he’s confident that will change when an updated memo is released this year.
“In the eyes of ICE and myself, the change in our policy a couple months ago has resolved the issue,” he said.
Opponents say bills could worsen 'atmosphere of fear'
Democratic state Rep. Nima Kulkarni, an immigration lawyer in Louisville, said she opposes the two House bills being considered by the General Assembly.
Kulkarni said she thinks state lawmakers misunderstand what Louisville’s ordinance does.
“There was nothing in that 2017 ordinance that barred cooperation from federal agencies,” she said. “They just had to have an underlying reason…legal, legitimate, credible reason for LMPD to be there.”
Kulkarni said local governments have a good reason for limiting their cooperation with federal immigration agencies. If a police department arrests the wrong person or holds someone with an immigration detainer beyond when they should be released from jail, the local governments could be held liable, she said.
Narrowing conversations about Kentucky’s immigrants and refugees to enforcement action also misses the benefits they provide to their communities, Kulkarni said. Immigrants and refugees account for about 5% of Kentucky’s population. They also account for 13% of small business owners, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
“You look at our horse industry, you look at our bourbon industry, you look at our hospitality and tourism industry, reliant, heavily reliant on immigrant workers,” she said.
Opponents of the proposed bills are also worried that expanding local government’s role in immigration enforcement could become a drain on local police departments and jails already strapped for resources.
A report from the American Immigration Council estimated that deporting one million people per year would cost $88 billion annually. That estimate doesn’t include the loss of tax revenue generated by immigrants working, shopping and living in the United States.
The ACLU of Kentucky plans to oppose HB 213 and HB 344 during the General Assembly session.
Executive Director Amber Duke said Trump’s recent executive orders and directives to deport more people living in the country without permission has already created “an atmosphere of fear” in local immigrant communities.
“When people have fears that if they are going to interact with a law enforcement officer, if they’re going to interact with the court system or hospital system and they’re going interact with someone who’s potential going to turn them over to ICE … we know that people are afraid to access those services,” Duke said.
In the case of Louisville, where the police department is still trying to earn back community trust following the killing of Breonna Taylor in 2020, Duke said expanded cooperation with ICE could hamper that effort.
