A sweeping new Mississippi law authorizing state police to compile a detailed registry of undocumented immigrants—including their names, addresses, and whether they are children—takes effect Wednesday, drawing sharp warnings from civil liberties groups that the measure will fuel racial profiling and erode public safety by driving vulnerable communities away from law enforcement.
The law directs the state Department of Public Safety to "use all reasonable lawful investigative means available" to determine the number and identities of all "illegal aliens" in Mississippi. The registry will include names, addresses, country of origin, whether individuals are adults or minors, any criminal history, and the date, location and status of deportation proceedings. The department is required to share information on those suspected of violating laws with state and local authorities, though the measure neither requires nor prohibits sharing the database with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A National Trend in Republican-Led States
Mississippi's law is part of a broader wave of immigration enforcement measures sweeping Republican-led states. According to an Associated Press tally, states have enacted more than 100 immigration-related laws this year. In Republican-led states, these measures generally align with Trump's agenda by requiring local sheriffs to sign cooperative agreements with ICE, reinforcing eligibility restrictions for public benefits, and directing election clerks to check voter rolls against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system in an attempt to flag noncitizens. Democratic-led states, by contrast, have pushed back with new laws banning cooperative pacts with ICE, forbidding ICE tactics like wearing masks, and restricting immigration enforcement actions in schools, hospitals and other sensitive locations without judicial warrants.
The closest precedent appears to be a 2021 executive order by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, now in its fifth year, which directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to "use all lawful investigative means available" to determine the number and identities of all "illegal aliens" transported from the southwest border to Florida. The Florida agency did not respond to an AP request for information about the results of the executive order. Meanwhile, Trump's administration has stepped up enforcement of a decades-old federal law that requires noncitizens to register with the U.S. government.
Practical and Ethical Concerns
The Mississippi law envisions more than a one-time count—it prescribes an ongoing effort to track immigrants illegally in the state for the next two years. That could get complicated as people overstay visas, apply for new forms of legal status, and move into and out of the state.
Efrén Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income immigrants, said, "You can be undocumented today, and then have status tomorrow, and then lose it again next month, and then regain it three months from now." He added, "It's practically unworkable, but it's also very worrisome, because it's eerily reminiscent of other countries that have created lists of certain groups of people."
Victoria Francis, deputy director of state and local initiatives for the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of immigrants, said the new law "is very concerning for a bunch of different reasons," including the potential to redirect law enforcement resources away from protecting the public to investigating people from foreign countries who may be contributing to the economy. Francis said, "A mandate like this invites profiling and turning entire communities into targets."
Lydia Grizzell, policy and advocacy manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said the law could undermine trust between police and residents. She said, "That increases the likelihood of individuals not reaching out to law enforcement when it's needed – and that is opposite of the mission."
Who Is Affected
Mississippi has one of the country's smallest percentages of immigrants illegally residing in the state—fewer than 28,000 people, amounting to less than 1% of its population—according to a report by the American Immigration Council, which used 2023 Census Bureau data from the third year.
Republican state Sen. Angela Hill, who sponsored the measure, said states have a right and obligation to assist the U.S. government in discouraging illegal immigration, which she said facilitates crimes such as human and drug trafficking. Hill said, "The new law seems like commonsense to me. In order to address the problems caused by illegal immigration, we need to understand the magnitude of the problem. Identifying the number and identity of illegal aliens in Mississippi is a concrete way to better understand the problem."
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit think tank that supports restrictions on immigration, said state officials will need to come up with "a credible and fairly foolproof way of correctly determining someone's immigration status." Vaughan said the law "makes a lot of sense," adding that it "raises the likelihood that someone's illegal presence is going to come to the attention of federal authorities."
Why This Matters:
The Mississippi registry represents a significant expansion of state-level immigration enforcement that could reshape the relationship between law enforcement and immigrant communities—including mixed-status families with U.S. citizen children. Civil liberties advocates warn that tracking individuals by immigration status, particularly when children are included, risks creating a climate of fear that discourages crime victims and witnesses from cooperating with police, potentially making all residents less safe. The measure also raises questions about resource allocation: in a state with fewer than 28,000 undocumented residents out of nearly 3 million people, the ongoing tracking mandate could divert law enforcement capacity away from addressing violent crime and other public safety priorities. As similar measures proliferate in Republican-led states, the potential for racial and ethnic profiling grows, particularly in communities where immigration status is fluid and difficult to verify. The law's two-year tracking requirement underscores the challenge of maintaining accurate records as individuals gain or lose legal status, raising concerns about due process and the potential for errors that could affect families and workers contributing to Mississippi's economy.