Correction: This story was corrected at 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 30 to reflect that House Bill 335 did receive a hearing.
BOISE, ID – Members of an influential national conservative think tank plan to work with Idaho lawmakers again during the 2026 legislative session to further crack down on immigration in the state.
Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, held a free event Tuesday night at the Idaho State Museum on the ways in which state and local leaders can help enforce federal immigration laws.
Speakers at the event in Boise discussed renewed efforts to create a new state crime for concealing, harboring and shielding people who are in the U.S. illegally; tracking and reporting immigration status and nationality of public school students; and tracking and sharing the immigration status of those arrested by Idaho law enforcement.
The panelists supported use of E-Verify to verify work authorization, and the proposed state constitutional amendment to make English the official language of Idaho — which will appear on the November 2026 general election ballot.
The panelists were Theo Wold, former Idaho solicitor general and current Heritage Foundation visiting fellow for law and technology, and Lora Ries, director of Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and former Department of Homeland Security acting deputy chief of staff under the first Donald Trump presidential administration.
Ries was listed as a contributor to Project 2025 — the most recent installment in a series of presidential transition documents created for conservative presidential candidates since it was given to Ronald Reagan in 1980, according to the Heritage Foundation. Trump has carried out or expressed support for many of the policies laid out in the 920-page document.
Idaho state lawmakers Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood, and Sen. Phil Hart, R-Kellogg, were in attendance.
Speakers: Idaho governor’s agreement with ICE a ‘good start’ but ‘more is needed’
Ries said states began passing more immigration-related bills while Joe Biden was president, as they became increasingly concerned about illegal immigration.
“I just implore you to please stay engaged and keep trying those bills that deal with immigration where states have primary jurisdiction, primary authority,” she said, “whether that’s employment or business licenses, (or) public education.”
Idaho State Police has sent more than 50 immigrants to facilities for deportation
Wold characterized Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s announcement of an agreement between Idaho State Police and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, a “good start, but there are a lot of illegal aliens who are not being picked up in that effort.”
Little has said the agreement is meant to focus on those who are convicted of dangerous crimes and complete their sentence in Idaho jails and prisons. Under the agreement, used under a program known as 247(g), ISP troopers help transport those individuals into ICE detention facilities for deportation.
Most — but not all — of those transported thus far have state criminal convictions, according to an analysis of Idaho court data by the Idaho Capital Sun.
Immigration enforcement, and reporting bills likely to return to Idaho Statehouse
Wold said he worked with Hawkins during the last legislative session to write a bill to require the documentation of how many inmates in Idaho jails were undocumented.
“If the problem is small, then everyone should take credit that the problem is small,” Wold said.”If the problem is significant, you should all know that.”
The bill, House Bill 474, was introduced late in the 2025 legislative session as a personal bill — a largely symbolic action that bypasses the legislative committee hearing process where the bills are stored in the desk of the Office of the Chief Clerk and do not advance.
Wold also highlighted another bill he said he worked on with Hawkins, which would have required public schools to collect and report the immigration status and nationality of each student.
House Bill 382 was introduced in March in the House Education Committee, the Sun reported, and did not return for a hearing and thus did not advance. Hawkins co-sponsored the bill with Nampa Republican Rep. Steve Tanner.
A previous attempt to introduce the bill, made earlier that session, failed to clear the committee vote amid some members’ concerns about its constitutionality, Boise State Public Radio reported.
Ries noted a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that public schools cannot deny admission to students based on immigration status. She said that the court didn’t rule on whether tuition could be charged to students based on immigration status.
“It is long past time to retry that case, particularly around the tuition part,” Ries said. “… that’s something that we’ll be working on, but I implore any state to really press on this issue.”
Hawkins also introduced a bill creating a new state-level crime and penalties for concealing, harboring or shielding from detection someone who is in the U.S. illegally. The bill was introduced in February but the House Judiciary and Rules Committee voted to hold it and it did not advance, KTVB reported. Copies of Heritage Foundation model legislation that was largely identical to what Hawkins proposed were distributed to attendees at the event.
Heritage Foundation speakers oppose driver’s licenses for undocumented residents, ‘misplaced generosity’ regarding ICE removals
Both speakers spoke about efforts, including past efforts in Idaho, to provide a limited driver’s license for undocumented residents. State Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, most recently proposed the idea in Idaho in 2023.
FBI backtracks on denying children were zip tied in Idaho raid, saying instead no ‘young’ kids were
The idea was supported by the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, the J.R. Simplot Company, the Amalgamated Sugar Company and many other companies across the state.
The proposed identification would not be valid for voting, purchasing a firearm, boarding an airplane or obtaining a passport. The license would also be vertical instead of horizontal.
Wold said he opposed the proposal because he thought it could lead to increased voter fraud, access to public benefits or for transportation uses such as getting on a plane. Ries argued that the effort would begin with a limited card and then be opened up to be used as a traditional driver’s license would be.
Both speakers spoke to mass detentions and removals by ICE officials across the nation, and concerns that those detained were not getting due process. Ries said that because immigration actions are civil, rather than criminal, then immigrants aren’t entitled to a public defender.
Under the law, people undergoing deportation efforts are entitled to a lawyer at no expense to the government.
She and Wold argued that these cases are drawn out to buy time for the person facing deportation. The Trump administration had recently been using an expedited removal process to bypass judicial review from an immigration judge. The legality of this expedited process is being evaluated in the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the States Newsroom reported.
Ries and Wold argued that immigration proceedings can drag on, and people don’t always show up to their hearings, which can prolong the process.
“We have this phrase in our house we try to teach our children, it’s called ‘misplaced generosity,’” Wold said, “And that’s … the difference between being a good Christian in giving of your treasure to someone in need, and then just being a sucker. And part of being a sucker under immigration laws, as Lora said, well they’re trying to buy more time.”
He said that the more established someone may become in their community, the more difficult it may be to remove them.
“A lot of people who hear these stories about what ICE is doing, they feel bad,” he said. “It makes their generosity, their hackles are raised. ‘This doesn’t seem American. This doesn’t seem fair,’ but it’s very American.”
He said that in many cases, people have had “years to come to the conclusion that they should remove themselves from the country, and they don’t.”
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.
