Iowa lawmakers advanced a bill to require law enforcement officers to enforce immigration laws or risk up to five years in prison and a hefty fine.
Under House Study Bill 285, law enforcement officers, including elected sheriffs, who knowingly and intentionally fail to enforce immigration laws would be guilty of a Class D felony.
A Class D felony is punishable by no more than five years of prison time and a fine of at least $1,025 but not more than $10,245. Conviction under the bill would be grounds for mandatory revocation of a law enforcement officer’s certification by the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy.
The legislation follows a statement last month from a county sheriff in northeast Iowa rejecting federal immigration detainers and promising to block enforcement bans.
Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx wrote a statement on Feb. 4 deeming non-judicially vetted detainers from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, unconstitutional.
“My office’s actions and involvement will solely be based on constitutional standards,” Marx wrote in the Feb. 4 statement. “They will not be based on opinions, politics or emotions.”
Utilizing ICE and multiple federal agencies, President Donald Trump has launched his promised effort to enact the “largest deportation” in U.S. history.
Trump’s upheaval of immigration enforcement has led to nearly 23,000 arrests and 18,000 deportations in the past month, according to reporting by The New York Times.
A panel of Iowa lawmakers advanced the legislation on Wednesday. It is set to be heard by the full House Judiciary Committee.
Republicans on the panel, Iowa Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, and Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, voted in favor of the bill, while Iowa Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque, the lone Democrat on the panel, spoke against the legislation and asked for further conversation on the issue.
Wheeler referenced Marx’s statement, referring to it as “five minutes of fame” and an “absolutely ridiculous statement.”
“Not only did he put his county at risk of losing funds, but he put his county at risk of increasing crime,” Wheeler said.
Holt, chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee, said in 2025, we are faced with the reality that many immigrants have come to the U.S. for a better life and are contributing to communities, but “without a doubt,” some immigrants are gang members, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers.
Holt spoke about Trump honoring Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray in the president’s address to Congress Tuesday night.
Riley, of Woodstock, Georgia, was sexually assaulted and murdered by Jose Ibarra last year. Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally in September 2022. Undocumented migrants Johan Jose Martinez-Range and Franklin Peña were charged with killing a 12-year-old girl, Nangaray, on June 17.
In his congressional address, Trump spoke about signing the Laken Riley Act into law — which was the first bill he signed into law in his second term — and renamed a wildlife sanctuary in honor of Nungaray.
Holt said Wednesday he is not interested in hypotheticals or nit-picking language.
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“I think anyone not supporting doing all we can to ensure we do not have a Laken or Jocelyn-style tragedy in Iowa, that just doesn’t have any credibility with me,” Holt said. “And any officers sworn to uphold the law who would dare suggest concerns about imaginary lawsuits or details in language to trump the safety of the Lakens and Jocelyns out there, I have to call BS.”
If a law enforcement officer in Iowa refuses to comply with honoring ICE detainer requests, Holt said, the penalty should fit the gravity of the crime and the consequences for the actions.
“No more laws named after murdered nursing students or sanctuaries named after precious 12-year-old girls deprived of their lives by animals that should not even be in this country,” Holt said.
Tony Phillips, a lobbyist for the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association registered against the bill, said he is concerned about the penalties the legislation would allow.
Phillip said penalties under the bills extend to losing the right to vote and removing the ability to possess a firearm.
He said the bill includes language that is broad and open for interpretation.
“Do you have a law in which any citizen in Iowa’s empowered to file a complaint?” he said. “And now, if there’s simply a misunderstanding or maybe a lack of resources to provide enforcement assistance, I now have a member of law enforcement that risks a Class D felony, again, imprisonment, up to five years, and other things I detailed there.”
James said she is concerned that the legislation will complicate what is happening already on a federal level. James said she would like to see what happens on a federal level “before wading into the complexities around this particular issue.”
“I also want to point out that we’ve asked our law enforcement to do a lot, handle a lot, and it’s already difficult to recruit and retain law enforcement,” James said. “When hearing from them and their concerns, I think then we need to have a lot more robust conversation about what this could look like in our state.”