Legislation

This bill expands county sheriffs’ authority and the authority of jails not operated by sheriffs to indefinitely detain individuals for civil immigration purposes, insulates law enforcement from accountability, and removes longstanding democratic oversight. The combined effects of this bill—which is part of a larger legislative attack on immigrants and people of color—raise serious constitutional concerns. It significantly expands the authority of federal law enforcement in Kansas, weakens accountability, and threatens Kansans’ right to engage in lawful dissent.

This bill unnecessarily expands voter-purge mechanisms, relies on unreliable data sources, suppresses lawful civic engagement by non-governmental organizations, invites government misuse of personal information, and places unnecessary administrative burdens on state agencies. Database matching has a high error rate and has repeatedly resulted in eligible U.S. citizens being wrongly flagged or removed from the voter rolls. This bill does not address how data would be transferred or how this information would be protected. Compiling a list of already vulnerable residents poses serious threats to their safety. Furthermore, third-party voter registration has long played a crucial role in reaching young voters, first-time voters, rural Kansans, voters with limited internet access, and communities historically underrepresented in the electorate. Voter registration activity is not merely administrative—it is political speech protected by the First Amendment.

This bill includes provisions that threaten to disenfranchise Kansans twice over. First, it relies on signature verification rules known to disenfranchise eligible voters. Second, it threatens to eliminate “no excuse” mail-in voting if courts intervene to protect those voters’ rights. Courts often intervene to address unconstitutional implementation practices, not to attack mail-in voting itself. Rather than fixing the problems with signature verification, this bill takes a far more extreme approach: if courts protect voters and their constitutional right to vote, the legislature will punish them. This is not good-faith policymaking, nor is this a strategy for election integrity. This is a recipe for voter suppression.

This reckless bill, which does nothing to strengthen election security or address any demonstrated vulnerabilities in Kansas elections, would require citizenship status to be listed on Kansas driver’s licenses. This is part of much larger, coordinated attack on civil rights and immigrant communities, raising serious concerns regarding privacy, discrimination, and public safety. Requiring citizenship status to appear on driver’s licenses would expose this personal information to employers, landlords, businesses, law enforcement, and private individuals, all contexts in which a person’s citizenship status is unnecessary. This unnecessary disclosure invites discrimination and profiling and creates a two-tiered system of identification that treats people differently based on immigration status.

While the ACLU of Kansas appreciates legitimate efforts to protect freedom of speech and believes college campuses are public forums, other provisions in this bill undercut basic values of fairness and freedom of expression. By expanding existing loopholes, this bill will allow government-funded student organizations to exclude individuals from membership or leadership based on discriminatory criteria. This legislation would require public institutions to subsidize organizations, including ethnic supremacist political organizations, that actively exclude and discriminate against students based on political beliefs. Free speech must be protected, but taxpayers should not be compelled to support outright discrimination and exclusion under the guise of free speech.

This bill undermines judicial discretion and disproportionately harms low-income Kansans by mandating arrest and imposing stricter pretrial conditions based solely on charge level rather than individualized risk. These measures will only serve to increase incarceration rates and deepen systemic inequities. This bill significantly limits judicial discretion by prohibiting courts from issuing summonses in felony cases, regardless of individual circumstances. Removing this discretion undermines a core principle of our justice system: decisions should be based on individuals, not just the charges against them. For individuals living paycheck to paycheck, even short periods of pretrial detention can result in job loss, eviction, disruptions to childcare, and financial instability. Wealthier defendants are better positioned to absorb these mandated disruptions or post secured bond; poorer defendants are not.

Prohibiting undocumented immigrants who are unlawfully present in the United States from receiving any state or local public benefit in accordance with applicable federal law.

Unnecessarily expanding voter-purge mechanisms.

Expanding the use of juvenile detention and an increased commitment to correctional facilities.