In March, New Jersey became the latest state to pass laws intended to prevent immigration enforcement — banning cooperative agreements and prohibiting information sharing. At least 10 other states have enacted similar laws, with more pursuing the same. Massachusetts alone is spending roughly $5 million in taxpayer dollars every year to retain two dozen lawyers working to stop deportations.
Meanwhile, the best defense against these sanctuary policies – Congressional action – is waiting for a champion to lead the effort.
After a historic start to 2025, legislators at the state and federal level have spent the first quarter of 2026 drifting away from the immigration-control mandates voters handed them in the last election.
The 119th Congress jumped out of the gate to pass the Laken Riley Act with bipartisan support. Since then, there has been plenty of funding for arrests and detention — but no lasting legislative change.
In the vacuum left by Congress, state legislatures have been sowing the seeds of the next border crisis. Sanctuary states have doubled down on measures to block enforcement, while enforcement-friendly states have refused to use tools like E-Verify to strike at the heart of illegal immigration: illegal hiring.
Arrests and detentions matter — but they were never going to reverse the Biden border crisis alone. We cannot control immigration if we don’t hold employers accountable when they exploit illegal labor. Only 14% of American employers use E-Verify. For every Democratic-led state passing laws to block enforcement, there is a Republican-led state that has killed a bill to expand the free, two-minute work-authorization check.
While legislatures dither and submit to cheap-labor special interest groups, human smugglers, cartels and coyotes are polishing up their marketing materials. Lawmakers have already provided the pitch: A dozen states refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement. You can work illegally in dozens more. Hand over your money, your lives, and we will get you to your destination state of choice where the laws and limits set by the United States Congress have no meaning!
The actions of these state legislatures, combined with the inaction of Congress, are a gift to smugglers, traffickers and cartels who build their multi-billion-dollar industry on one simple message: the risk will be worth it.
Our lawmakers are putting these groups back in business. We need only look back a couple of years to be reminded of what that means:
Overwhelmed communities, physical infrastructure, and fiscal infrastructure.
Billions of dollars in taxpayer costs every year.
Strain on housing, food services, education, and healthcare.
And crimes
The vast majority of people here illegally broke immigration laws so they could work illegally. When our government turned a blind eye to illegal labor they created a pool for more nefarious actors to hide in. Some of them went on to commit other crimes. These crimes should not have happened. And they would not have happened had immigration limits been strictly enforced.
The sanctuary policies enacted by state legislatures in 2026 will lock in the costs of the previous border crisis, and set the stage for the next one. The damage will once again stretch beyond our own borders.
During the last crisis, as millions of people surged to the border to take advantage of the Biden Administration’s policies, we saw a record number of border deaths.
Between 2021-2025, half a million minors were smuggled to the border and released into the United States. Hundreds of thousands of them, we later learned, ended up not in school, but in jobs working as child laborers. A government hotline set up to help them left more than sixty thousand calls unanswered.
These are not “humane” or “compassionate” results. These are the inevitable and recent consequences of blocking enforcement and tolerating illegal hiring.
In his State of the Union address, Trump acknowledged the fragile state of the historically quiet and secure border:
“We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved, but indeed, they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance.”
There are multiple bills in Congress that would start another rush on the border, including H.R. 7190 which would:
Bills like H.R. 7190 don’t just block immigration enforcement; they reward illegal immigration. The open-borders caucus is putting in the work. Over 150 representatives are already signed on to H.R. 1061 to create enforcement-free zones across the country.
We don’t have to repeat the mistakes of our recent past. We can put immigration back on track. But Congress will have to reassert itself as the first-among-equals branch of government.
The Legislative Branch has introduced several good bills in this Congress, but the most effective bulwark against another border crisis (H.R. 2) has yet to find a sponsor to claim it.
There may never be a better opportunity to fight for a better immigration system. If not now, when?
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