Iowa GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds Signs Bill To Allow Police To Arrest Migrants

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed a bill allowing state authorities to arrest any migrants who entered the United States illegally. Immigration is typically a federal not a state, issue.

“The Biden administration has failed to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, putting the protection and safety of Iowans at risk,” Reynolds said in a statement, during which she had announced the signing of the legislation, which goes into full effect this July.

“Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet [Biden] refuses to deport them,” she added. “This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.”

The Iowa governor is one of many Republican governors who have fiercely criticized Biden’s immigration policies. 

She deployed the Iowa National Guard to back Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-migrant measures and made several trips to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. 

According to the American Immigration Council, just 5.3% of Iowa residents are foreign-born, while illegal immigrants make up for 1.1% of the state’s population.

This new law, passed by the Iowa legislature in March, makes it an aggravated misdemeanor offense—punishable by up to two years in prison—for migrants to be in Iowa if they have exceptional deportation orders, were already deported or were at one point denied entry into America. 

The law raises the crime to a felony offense if the individual’s previous removal orders were connected to misdemeanor convictions for drug crimes, crimes against people or any felony conviction. 

Police cannot arrest migrants suspected of violating the law at places of worship, schools or medical facilities. 

According to the law, a judge could allow arrested individuals to leave the U.S. without facing charges.

On April 10, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa declared that the state’s law “facilitates racial profiling and stereotyping.” 

Anthony D. Romero, the head of the ACLU of Iowa, condemned the legislation.

He called it one of the “most extreme, discriminatory, and unconstitutional anti-immigrant bills” in the U.S., claiming that it is going to “wreak havoc” on citizens and noncitizens alike. 

The law is similar to Texas’ SB4 legislation, a part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative, which had made crossing the border illegally a state crime and allows this state’s authorities to arrest, jail, prosecute and deport migrants who enter the country between ports of entry. 

In March, a federal appellate court blocked Texas’ law from being enforced as the legal battle over it plays out. 

The Justice Department said this law violated the U.S. Constitution, asserting that the founding document offers the federal government sole authority to enforce federal immigration laws. 

On November 5, 2023, Former President Donald Trump attacked Reynolds in a Truth Social post in expectation of her endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron Desantis (R) for the 2024 presidential election.

Reynolds had introduced DeSantis at events in Iowa, and they watched a football game between rival schools, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, in addition to one another in September 2023.

Trump wrote, “If and when Kim Reynolds of Iowa endorses Ron DeSanctimonious, who is dying in the polls both in Iowa and Nationwide, then she, just like DeSantis, would no longer receive support from MAGA, meaning her “political career” would be over.”

The former president then mentioned that “two extremely disloyal people getting together is, however, a very beautiful thing to watch” because they could “now remain loyal to each other because nobody else wants them!!!”

Last year in was reported that Reynolds created a burner X account to share her disapproval of Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and to praise DeSantis in the months before the Iowa caucuses.

This account, @Kimberl26890376, contained the username “Kimberly Reynolds” and an image of the governor as its profile picture before it was suspended on January 11 and then appeared to be deleted altogether.

Only 259 people followed this account before it was removed, and it did not link back to Reynolds’ official account, @IAGovernor, or even her personal account, @KimReynoldsIA.

The user of this burner account did not mention in her posts that she is Iowa’s governor. Most of these posts came in recent months and were connected to the Republican presidential primary.