Both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature have advanced bills aiming to crack down on immigration, despite some lawmakers raising concerns that the federal government is responsible for enforcement and that the proposals could inadvertently harm U.S. citizens. 

The Senate on Tuesday passed a measure that would create a state crime of being in Mississippi illegally and authorize local law enforcement to charge people with being in the state without proper documentation. 

Sen. Angela Hill, a Republican from Picayune, is the author of the bill. She said the measure would not impose additional duties on local law enforcement. But it would “align” state immigration law with federal law. 

“If someone comes into Mississippi through the Gulf of America and not through a legal point of entry, this would create a state crime, a felony, for someone coming into Mississippi and bypassing a legal port of entry,” Hill said. 

Every Democrat, except Juan Barnett of Heidelberg, opposed the measure. All of the chamber’s 34 Republicans supported it. 

Sen. Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, argued the legislation needed more work. Hopson, an attorney, ultimately voted in favor of the bill, but raised concerns that the legislation may be unconstitutional because immigration enforcement is a federal, not state, responsibility.

“I think our government ought to be doing things with immigration,” Hopson said. “But current law is that this is a federal issue and not a state issue.” 

Hill said she believes the measure is constitutional. 

But she argued that if Mississippi had not disregarded concerns about complying with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and passed a 2018 law that restricted access to abortions, then the U.S. Supreme Court would have never overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

“What I would say is if this body had not fought to override Roe v. Wade, we’d have a clinic over there that’s pink,” Hill said, referencing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic that operated in Jackson until 2022. 

The immigration measure would require the state Department of Public Safety and law enforcement agencies operating county jails to enter into an agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

The measure currently includes a clause that would require the Legislature to debate it further before it can become law. 

The House on the same day passed a bill that could make it more onerous for people without a driver’s license to register to vote, a proposal its author said would allow local elections officials to verify a person’s citizenship.

The Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy, or SHIELD, Act would require county registrars to conduct extra checks on people who try to register to vote without a driver’s license number. 

Under the bill, if someone tried to register and could not produce a license number, the clerk would need to verify whether the person appears in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database called SAVE. Government agencies use the federal database to verify an applicant’s immigration status or citizenship.

The bill would also require election officials to notify applicants flagged as non-citizens and require them to prove citizenship.

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said the bill he authored is necessary to ensure only U.S. citizens vote.

“The bill is designed to ensure that the people who vote are citizens like you and I,” Sanford said in response to questions from House Democrats.

Democrats said the bill would make registering to vote more costly and time-consuming for people who don’t have a driver’s license. They also said the bill would result in “voter suppression” and could even function as a “poll tax” because people might end up having to obtain extra documents, such as their birth certificate, to prove their citizenship.

The legislation in Mississippi arrives as the Trump administration pushes to “nationalize” elections with a federal bill that could potentially prevent millions of people from casting ballots.

The measures are several steps from becoming law, and each bill must pass the other legislative chamber in the Capitol before it could go to the governor for consideration.