Hawaiʻi can't control ICE. Here's what lawmakers want to do instead

FILE - A Kirtland's warbler in the jack pine forests of northern Michigan, near Mio, Mich., on May 19, 2008. (AP Photo/John Flesher File)

Bitter national angst over the federal government’s immigration tactics has pushed Hawaiʻi lawmakers in directions they weren’t willing to go last year.

That has kept alive a collection of bills intended to protect immigrants and limit cooperation between state and local agencies and federal immigration authorities as the 2026 legislative session reaches its crucial midpoint.

It’s a signal change from last year, when no such legislation survived the session, with much of it dying early on. The difference, say advocates and lawmakers, is the ramped-up crackdown on immigrants.

“We had a year to see what this Trump administration was going to do, and it was clear that our more wait-and-see attitude wasn’t really going to work,” state Sen. Karl Rhoads said. “We needed to be more aggressive if we were going to protect the rights of our citizens here in Hawaiʻi.”

To increase the odds that something would reach the governor, advocates this year again pushed for multiple bills rather than an omnibus approach, with one or two bills carrying the weight of their hopes.

This week, bills advanced that speak to the plethora of concerns raised across the country by critics of the administration’s heavy-handed approach.

One would generally prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks, another would bar police officers from stopping people to ask them about their immigration status and protect the right for the public to record police activities, and one would require state and county police agencies to advise people in custody of their rights before they are interviewed by federal immigration agents.

“We have a bill that is still alive, still moving through the process in every single category in our immigrant justice package,” said Tina Sablan, community and policy advocate at The Legal Clinic in Honolulu, which serves the immigrant community.

Lawmakers said views in the Legislature have been changed by the increasingly no-holds-barred immigration enforcement in places such as Chicago and Los Angeles — as well as Minnesota, where in January federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens who were observing and protesting their actions.

“Minnesota was a pretty crystallizing event,” said Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Last year, he introduced several immigration bills that went nowhere. By contrast, his committee passed three immigration bills Thursday, including one to prohibit local law enforcement officers from helping federal agents exceed their authority or suppress First Amendment activity, such as protesting during ICE sweeps.

‘Done By Design’

Urged along by advocates, legislators this session introduced more than 25 bills related to immigrant rights and immigration enforcement. The idea was to have “multiple vehicles” moving so that as bills were amended or lost momentum, others could pick up some of the pieces that fell by the wayside.

“It was done in almost an a la carte way because we want to see all these moving forward,” said Mandy Fernandes, policy director of ACLU of Hawaiʻi. “Strategically it does make sense.”

While about half the introduced bills have died, those that remain still carry the bulk of what advocates want: a bulwark against Hawaiʻi getting pulled into immigration enforcement practices beyond what the law requires.

For example, local officials and police officers cannot stop federal agents from making arrests that are supported by judicial warrants. But various proposed bills would prohibit them from participating in enforcing civil violations of immigration law, which they are not required by law or authorized to do.

To that end, one bill, House Bill 1870, would prevent local officials from cooperating with most enforcement around state-funded facilities such as schools, social service agencies and health services.

The Trump administration in January 2025 rescinded a similar federal policy covering so-called “sensitive places.” It had been in place nationwide since 2011 and limited ICE’s ability to conduct actions in places such as schools, hospitals and churches.

Like the sensitive places bill, several other measures that were dead by this midway stage last year are still hanging on. They include House Bill 1768, aimed at barring state or local law enforcement agencies from entering agreements with federal authorities that would allow them to join in immigration enforcement.

Several other bills, including House Bill 1886, which advanced out of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee on Wednesday, would restrict the ways local police departments could work with federal law enforcement agencies. That bill would prohibit police departments from joining task force operations that could result in “civil immigration detention, removal, or deportation proceedings.”

Police departments in all four Hawaiʻi counties have agreements under which their officers are enlisted in task forces at federal agencies including Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, and the FBI. Officials at all the departments have said the agreements do not allow their officers to participate in immigration enforcement.

Advocates say more safeguards are needed, in the form of state laws.

“It has become abundantly clear that the Department of Homeland Security is no longer an agency that abides by constitutional norms,” said Liza Ryan Gill, co-coordinator of the Hawaiʻi Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

“If Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes with a judicial warrant, there is nothing we can pass or do that can stop them from executing that warrant,” Gill said. “This package of bills is meant to protect Hawaiʻi from being dragged down into the unconstitutional actions of a rogue agency.”

Still On Fast Track?

In January, following a rally and vigil for people who have died in ICE detention centers and the two slain Minnesota protestors – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – Gov. Josh Green said he hoped a package of immigration-related bills could be fast-tracked to his desk.

“Anything that states can do to make it clear that we’re standing up against this kind of violence and that we’re protecting people, is the right thing to do,” Green told Civil Beat at the rally.

On Thursday, the governor’s spokesperson, Makana McClellan, said that was still his position.

In the state Senate, Rhoads said fast-tracking was underway, with one bill already having crossed over to the House. That bill, Senate Bill 2203, makes it a criminal offense for law enforcement officers to wear a facial covering except under certain circumstances, such as during undercover operations.

The bill reads: “Prohibiting the use of face masks unless certain conditions are met will improve public trust by drawing a sharp distinction between legitimate law enforcement and the perception of secret police tactics used by federal agents under the Trump administration.”

It was amended to allow masks during undercover operations after pushback from the Honolulu Police Department and the state Department of Law Enforcement.

Similar legislation, often dubbed No Secret Police laws, has been passed or introduced around the country, including in California. There, the new law prohibited law enforcement officers, including federal officers, from wearing masks in most circumstances. That law, too, allows officers in undercover operations to wear masks.

Fernandes said advocates are still hopeful legislation can reach the governor for his signature before the legislative session ends.

“We haven’t heard from any elected that there’s a change in plans to fast-track these measures,” Fernandes said.

At the same time, Sablan, of The Legal Clinic, said they are taking into account that the Trump administration may well bring court challenges against any laws that oppose its aims.

“We want to have the strongest bills possible. And that does take deliberation and time,” she said. “If we can … get really strong bills enacted into law sooner rather than later, that would be best. But if it’s mid-April as opposed to May, I think we’ll just be happy to see these bills through to enactment.”

Rep. David Tarnas, chair of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, said he wants to get the bills right, more than speed them along.

“This is very complicated, and I want to make sure that we work closely with the Attorney General’s Office and with the immigration lawyers that we have in the state here to make sure the language is solid,” Tarnas said.

“That it is protecting states’ rights and does not inappropriately limit federal agents in carrying out their assigned responsibilities.”

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Civil Beat’s reporting on the Hawaiʻi State Legislature is supported in part by the Donald and Astrid Monson Education Fund and its reporting on economic inequality is supported by the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation as part of its work to build equity for all through the CHANGE Framework; and by the Cooke Foundation.

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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.