Kansas lawmakers want Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to assist Republican President Donald Trump with immigration enforcement efforts.
The Kansas Senate is considering a resolution calling on Kelly to cooperate with the Trump administration.
"We just need to focus on, like the Trump administration, getting rid of the violent criminals," said Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover. "I mean, if we just do that, we're miles ahead."
Trump issued several executive orders after taking office Monday, including on immigration and border security. USA Today reported that one of them declared a national border emergency, through which Trump intends to use the U.S. military to crack down on illegal immigration, combat transnational gangs and drug trafficking, and execute his promised mass deportations of undocumented migrants.
"All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came," Trump said in his inaugural address.
Kelly's potential cooperation or lack thereof with Trump's administration would be of political interest nationwide, as the Kansas governor is the chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
She told The Capital-Journal in December that there was no common strategy among Democratic governors for how they would work with or against Trump. Elsewhere, some Democratic governors have voiced opposition to cooperating with Trump.
"Governor Kelly has been calling for immigration reform for years, which includes securing the border and deporting dangerous criminals," said Grace Hoge, a Kelly spokesperson, in a statement. "This is an issue that can only be solved at the federal level and not through a non-binding resolution from the legislature."
Senate president thinks governor was 'tone deaf' on immigration
In her State of the State speech last week, Kelly did not address immigration. Masterson told reporters afterward that he was surprised that Kelly "didn't say a word" about what "was very much a No. 1 issue" for Kansas voters.
"It felt tone deaf to what we just went through in these elections," he said.
Masterson described the Senate resolution as encouraging Kelly to "comply with the law." He didn't suggest any other ideas for how the Legislature could assist Trump on immigration.
"I think if there were, we'd be doing them — that's why it's really down to a resolution," he said. "The law is the law. The law is in place. We're just wanting her to follow it."
What is in the Senate resolution?
The resolution asks Kelly to cooperate with federal authorities in implementing Trump's deportation policies. It says illegal immigration leads to "severe repercussions" like the introduction of fentanyl, strains on public resources and threats to public health and safety.
It says the collaboration is "essential for effective and efficient enforcement" of immigration laws and calls on Kansas to join states that are "at the forefront of the effort to secure our border." It also points to noncompliant states and cities, sometimes called sanctuary cities, that have stated they will oppose Trump's plans on immigration.
Two years ago lawmakers passed a law banning sanctuary cities, despite no city in Kansas adopting a policy of non-cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The only specific assistance the resolution calls for is the deployment of the Kansas National Guard to the southern border. Last year, the Kansas Legislature appropriated $15.7 million to deploy the Kansas National Guard to Texas, but Kelly declined to send troops.
Democrats oppose resolution but recommend tweaks
In a Senate Federal and State Affairs committee meeting on Tuesday, Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence offered several amendments to the resolution despite she and the other Democrat in the committee, Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, D-Wichita, ultimately voting against passing it along to the Senate.
Francisco's changes included tweaks to the wording to say border security is a bipartisan issue, rather than it is becoming bipartisan, and stating that the deportation of illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes are a priority, rather than the priority.
Other amendments, like adding wording that specifies support for deporting illegal immigrants who committed crimes while in the country illegally failed.
"I won't be supporting this motion because illegal immigrants are criminal. They broke the law in order to get to the United States," said Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker.
The resolution was opposed by New Frontiers, an advocacy group focused on increasing youth voter turnout, and the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, a Christian nonprofit that operates schools and hospitals. New Frontiers called the resolution an attack on home rule and local control, said it wastes state resources for a federal issue and that it jeopardizes inroads police have made with immigrant communities.
"The ramifications of enacting the proposed collaboration between local agencies and federal Department of Homeland Security would have devastating impacts on the rate of crime reporting from this community and further erode trust," Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, New Frontier's campaign manager, wrote to lawmakers.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the America First Policy Institute all lent support for the resolution to the committee. Kobach urged officials to be ready to cooperate with federal partners and praised Trump's plan to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy, build a border wall and "to stop federal agencies from granting birthright citizenship."
The KBI said the latest population estimate of illegal immigrants in Kansas from the federal government was about 75,000, but the amount that commit crimes beyond those relating to their immigration status is difficult to ascertain. It did, however, point to threat assessments that found about 19 international drug trafficking organizations in the state, the vast majority of which are tied to Mexican cartels.
Kobach and the KBI's Bob Stuart were the only in-person testimony at an informational hearing on Jan. 16.
Will Trump call Kansas National Guard to southern border?
While Trump said in his inaugural address, "I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country," it wasn't clear whether he would call up any National Guard units from Kansas.
Last year, the Legislature appropriated $15.7 million for Kelly to send the Kansas National Guard to the Texas border, but the governor line-item vetoed the funding. While lawmakers overrode her veto, it remained up to the governor whether to send the guard.
"It is my constitutional authority to direct the National Guard while on state duty," Kelly said at the time. "It is not the Legislature's role to direct the operations or call out the National Guard."
Could ICE detain immigrants at Leavenworth prison?
The ACLU in December announced that documents it had obtained revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was "actively considering proposals to expand its immigration detention capacity in Kansas."
"An expanded ICE presence in our state will deeply harm our fellow Kansans," said Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, in a December statement. "The community of Leavenworth has made it clear multiple times that ICE and CoreCivic are not welcome to wreak the havoc of federal immigration enforcement here — and local and state leaders do not have to give in."
Masterson said he hadn't heard of any possibility of a shuttered private prison in Leavenworth becoming an immigrant detention center.