Missouri and Illinois Take Opposite Paths on Immigration
Missouri and Illinois have taken sharply different approaches to one basic question: What role should state and local police play in federal immigration enforcement?
Illinois has gone the other direction. The TRUST Act and related laws generally prohibit state and local law enforcement from participating in federal civil immigration enforcement or holding someone solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer.
The records now available from both states show what those choices mean in practice.
Missouri expands cooperation with ICE
Governor Mike Kehoe made immigration enforcement part of his Safer Missouri initiative shortly after taking office in 2025.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol entered its first 287(g) agreement with ICE in March 2025. Since then, participation has spread quickly among local agencies.
Under the task-force version of 287(g), trained state and local officers exercise limited immigration authority under ICE supervision while carrying out normal police duties.
The Highway Patrol offers an early example.
Its program became operational in September 2025. Through February 12, 2026, troopers contacted ICE about 53 people suspected of being unlawfully present in the country. ICE issued detainers for 44 of them.
The Highway Patrol said those encounters came through regular police work, including traffic stops, investigations and calls for service.
Missouri has continued to expand its cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Liberty Alliance previously highlighted those efforts in our Blue Lives Spotlight series.
Illinois limits local participation
Illinois law gives local police a much narrower role.
The state generally bars local agencies from participating in federal civil immigration enforcement and limits when someone can be held or transferred based on an ICE request.
Illinois also requires law enforcement agencies to report their interactions with federal immigration authorities.
Those reports give us unusually detailed data.
In 2024, 824 of roughly 960 Illinois law enforcement agencies submitted reports to the attorney general.
Thirty-three agencies reported receiving 1,125 immigration detainers or civil immigration warrants, up from 523 the year before.
Illinois agencies also reported 452 other requests from federal immigration authorities for participation, support or assistance in civil immigration enforcement.
They approved just 26 of those requests, or 5.75%.
Most of those approvals appear to have involved requests for publicly available information rather than operational help with immigration enforcement.
Federal immigration authorities regularly interact with Illinois law enforcement. Illinois law sharply limits what those agencies can do in response.
Illinois enforces those limits
Illinois agencies reported 24 transfers to ICE or Homeland Security Investigations in 2024 after receiving civil immigration detainers or warrants.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office accounted for 18 of them.
The Illinois Attorney General investigated the department. During that investigation, the sheriff’s office confirmed that it had stopped making such transfers based on civil detainers or warrants.
Missouri is moving in the opposite direction. State leaders have encouraged cooperation with ICE, created a statewide Highway Patrol partnership and seen dozens of local agencies join the federal program.
The public safety argument
Cooperation with ICE helps police identify people subject to immigration enforcement during ordinary police work, share information and get offenders into federal custody when appropriate.
Illinois argues that separating local policing from federal civil immigration enforcement makes immigrants more willing to report crimes, contact police and cooperate as witnesses.
Missouri is now collecting information that could bear on this debate.
Missouri is collecting new immigration data
Missouri has added immigration status to its statewide crime-reporting system.
The reporting requirement was part of HB 495, the major public-safety legislation passed in 2025.
The state’s 2026 Missouri Incident-Based Reporting System specifications include an Arrestee Immigration Status field based on Department of Homeland Security fingerprint information maintained by the Highway Patrol.
The categories go well beyond a simple citizen or noncitizen designation and include several different immigration statuses.
That could eventually give Missourians much better information about the relationship between immigration status, arrests and alleged offenses.
Early returns from Missouri’s public safety push
It may be too early to judge the full effect of Governor Kehoe’s public-safety agenda. But several of the programs launched during his first year are already producing measurable results.
Operation Relentless Pursuit, another Safer Missouri initiative, arrested or assisted in the arrest of 1,585 fugitives in its first year and cleared 2,699 outstanding warrants across 83 counties and the City of St. Louis. Officers also seized 119 illegally possessed guns.
The Blue Shield Program brought more than 200 Missouri communities into a state program supporting law enforcement training and equipment.
Now Missouri’s expanded cooperation with ICE is producing referrals and detainers during ordinary police work.
But the early signs are encouraging. Programs designed to improve coordination, give law enforcement more tools and remove wanted offenders from the streets are being implemented and producing tangible results.
Missouri should keep measuring those results. Publishing that data in a clear and accessible form would give Missourians another way to judge whether the state’s approach is working.
Andy Bakker
Executive Director
Liberty Alliance USA