Bill would end local police immigration enforcement, centralizing power in federal hands
H.R. 6890 — PROTECT Immigration Act of 2025 · Filed by Mike Quigley (D-IL) · 23 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 18, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill eliminates the 287(g) program, which currently allows state and local police to investigate and arrest people for immigration violations under written agreements with ICE. The bill restricts immigration enforcement exclusively to federal immigration officers and DHS employees, removing state and local law enforcement's delegated authority to conduct immigration investigations and arrests.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to rescind state and local immigration enforcement authority and consolidate that power exclusively in federal DHS. This is a structural reorganization of enforcement jurisdiction, not a substantive change to immigration law itself.
What the text implies
- Eliminates a decentralized enforcement mechanism, potentially reducing local transparency and community oversight of immigration enforcement activities.
- Centralizes enforcement in federal hands without specifying resource levels, staffing, or enforcement priorities — federal capacity may be insufficient to replace local enforcement, creating enforcement gaps.
- Removes a tool used by some jurisdictions to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, but also removes a tool enabling civil-rights violations; net effect on enforcement intensity is unclear.
- May reduce local police involvement in immigration enforcement, potentially improving police-community relations in immigrant communities but also reducing local input into federal enforcement decisions.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Eliminating 287(g) removes a tool that has been documented to enable racial profiling and civil-rights violations by local police acting as immigration agents, which benefits citizens subject to discriminatory enforcement. However, the bill also centralizes immigration enforcement in federal hands without addressing whether federal enforcement will be more or less aggressive, and it may reduce local accountability and transparency in immigration enforcement decisions.
Named in the bill
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), State and local law enforcement agencies, Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 287(g), Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Section 439
Where it stands
23 cosponsors: 23 Democrats.
- Dec 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 18, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (889 characters) on Oct 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,388 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-21.
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