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POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

Mississippi Immigration Bill Would Weaken Local Control

| By CBPP

A bill before Mississippi lawmakers would “reduce cities’ and towns’ control over their budgets, limit local law enforcement’s flexibility in doing its job, and potentially expose municipalities to federal lawsuits by requiring them to ‘assist federal immigration authorities in the enforcement of federal immigration law,’” CBPP Director of State Fiscal Research Michael Leachman writes in a guest post for the Hope Policy Institute.

“Lawmakers should reject the bill, which would more likely create new problems for Mississippi’s cities and towns than solve any current ones,” he adds.

For example, the bill (SB 2306):

Reduces local control over city and town budgets.  When local police and jails detain people on behalf of federal immigration officials, they aren’t fully reimbursed for the associated costs.  Limiting local law enforcement’s role in policing federal immigration law thus saves money for local taxpayers.  In the future, Mississippi municipalities and their taxpayers might reasonably decide to take this step, but SB 2306 would bar them from doing so. . . .

Click here for the full post.