BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Sheriffs’ Association alleged Thursday that Republican legislators introduced a rerun of a controversial immigration bill because of pressure from the Trump administration.

Two members of Senate leadership, including Senate Pro Tem Kelly Anthon, R-Declo, introduced four new immigration bills Thursday morning during the Senate State Affairs Committee meeting, after months of legislative hiccups and defeats on the topic.

That included a failed bill that would have required agencies to apply for 287(g) cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Law enforcement fought that bill, saying that they already cooperate with ICE and that they viewed it as an unfunded, unnecessary mandate.

But the sheriffs said Stephen Miller, a hardline Trump immigration adviser, “directly contacted” Idaho leaders after lawmakers shot down the ICE agreement bill on March 16.

“Since the bill was held in committee, the situation has escalated,” the sheriffs said in a Thursday news release. “That kind of outside pressure has no place in shaping Idaho public safety policy.”

On Thursday morning, Anthon brought a new bill that would require law enforcement to apply to join cooperation agreements with ICE, unless county commissioners or a city council determine that the agreement would hinder local police.

The sheriffs said Miller was trying to “influence the outcome of this legislation” and urged lawmakers “to reject any attempt to revive or repackage House Bill 659 through a rushed or opaque process.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not return a request for comment. A spokesperson for Gov. Brad Little, Joan Vargas, said the office would not comment on pending legislation.

Anthon said in an interview that after the first 287(g) bill failed, he wrote another one and shared it with the federal government. He denied communicating with Miller, though he said he has spoken to people who work for the adviser.

“This is not a top-down push from the federal government to pass legislation,” Anthon said. “This is me trying to involve the federal government as I draft bills to make sure that they are workable and that they are good policy.”

The new bills came on the 74th day of the Idaho legislative session and as lawmakers are trying to find ways to wrap up and go home ahead of the May 19 primary election. Anthon told the Statesman on Thursday morning, before the press release from the sheriffs, that he was introducing three of the bills as an attempt to rewrite flawed legislation.

“I came to the session saying we are not going home without passing something meaningful on immigration,” Anthon said.

Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, a former president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said he saw an ulterior motive in these immigration bills: Legislators want to go back to their districts and campaign on the issue.

Donahue told the Statesman in a phone interview, during which he expressed frustration and exasperation, that the sheriffs heard directly from the governor’s office about Stephen Miller’s office reaching out to the Legislature.

“You’re pandering to the administration and going at odds with the sheriffs in this state,” Donahue said.

What are the new immigration bills?

One of Anthon’s bills is largely an amalgamation of previously stalled legislation; it combines a previous Senate bill’s bid to audit Idaho refugee programs with a bill that would require police officers to verify the immigration status and nationality of everyone arrested.

Police said that latter bill, which cleared the House but has not moved in the Senate, would create duplicated work among agencies and take time away from policing.

There’s also a bill to tax remittances, or money that people send out of the country. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in 2025, levied an excise tax on remittances.

The remittance bill likely isn’t going anywhere this session, Anthon told the Statesman. In 2024, the Statesman reached out to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to find out how much money was sent via remittances from Idaho, and was told that data wasn’t available. Anthon said he estimated hundreds of millions of dollars, based on his research. He did not recall the source of that figure.

Then there’s the new 287(g) bill. A previous bill would have required law enforcement to participate in future federal programs, which some balked at, given the unknowns of the next administration.

Anthon said he listened to law enforcement and tried to make changes. His bills are not an indictment of the police and sheriff’s offices, who are doing a good job, Anthon said.

Donahue disputed that. He said they made one change: taking out the future participation clause. The bill is still an overreach, Donahue said, and he added that he was concerned by the trend of lawmakers listening to out-of-state groups like The Heritage Foundation, which he said helped draft these bills.

In the past few years, he said, more lawmakers haven’t been working with or listening to Idaho law enforcement when drafting bills.

“The problem is they don’t want to hear our opposition to crappy bills,” Donahue said.

A polarizing topic for police

This isn’t the first time this week lawmakers have drawn the ire of law enforcement. On Tuesday, Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford spoke out to criticize the Legislature for the 287(g) bill and for not working with law enforcement.

In a Wednesday phone interview, Clifford told the Statesman there is nothing he wants to see the Legislature pass on immigration.

“I don’t think they understand how much we actually do with ICE,” Clifford said. “Right now, there’s no state laws or hurdles that are blocking us from working with ICE.”

Instead, he guessed, lawmakers were looking at other states, seeing resistance to immigration enforcement there and coming back to Idaho determined to cement the opposite stance.

“Both of those things are bad,” Clifford said.

Anthon has been in the center of a firestorm online, with immigration hard-liners criticizing his PAC’s spending and how immigration bills have failed in the Senate.

That polarized fighting spilled out in person Thursday. At the end of Senate State Affairs, a man approached Anthon to thank him for his immigration bills. But Anthon railed against him for unspecified accusations, telling him he should be ashamed of himself.

“I don’t mind the criticism,” Anthon told the Statesman. “When you question someone’s integrity and honesty, that is something that I take very seriously in my own personal life.”

Later, Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood, who is a co-sponsor on the new 287(g) bill and has led the push on the House side on immigration bills, told the Statesman that Anthon had talked to him about the measure.

“We’ll see if it makes it across,” Hawkins said.

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