A growing number of states have adopted legislation to protect immigrant communities and American citizens from President Donald Trump’s violent deportation campaign, according to an analysis by American Immigration Council.
And while some measures are tied up in federal courts, the movement demonstrates increasing frustration with the way the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its enforcement agencies are operating across the country.
“Having seen nearly 18 months of the second Trump administration’s immigration agenda, many state lawmakers have responded by passing innovative policies that build upon a foundation of best practices, such as addressing data privacy and protection, expanding access to immigration legal services and placing guardrails on collaboration with federal immigration enforcement,” the organization reported July 8.
The initial focus in several legislatures has been on preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol personnel from using face masks and wearing plain clothes during operations. While the Department of Homeland Security claims the practice is necessary to prevent the online harassment of its officers, concealing their identities has sewn fear in local communities and destroyed public trust in law enforcement, the council explained.
The initial focus has been on preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol personnel from using face masks and wearing plain clothes.
In response, California passed its “No Vigilantes” and “No Secret Police” acts last fall to prohibit the use of face coverings and to require immigration agents to clearly display names, agencies or badges during enforcement actions. Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Virginia followed suit by passing similar legislation in 2026.
The Trump administration has challenged some of the measures, and in some cases federal courts have suspended implementation until those lawsuits are decided, the council said. But opposition to the administration’s practice has spread much wider than statehouses.
“Amid public outcry, attorneys general, members of Congress and former military and law enforcement officers have joined in to amplify concerns about the rise of these dangerous practices,” the Center for American Progress reported. “Recently, attorneys general from 21 different states called on Congress to pass legislation that both prohibits federal agents from wearing face coverings to conceal identity and implements requirements for showing identification and agency designation.”
The need for such regulations has been well documented. In addition to agents feeling emboldened to assault or kill immigrants and U.S. citizens, the use of face coverings and plain clothing has inspired criminals to follow suit, according to a recent report by Noticias Telemundo. The study found an increase in the number of cases of assailants dressing as federal agents to rob, assault and rape immigrants.
“Our investigation documented at least 31 cases in 2025 alone — a sharp increase compared to the average of 5.3 incidents per year in the previous decade. Overall, we identified 84 instances of imposters posing as immigration agents between 2014 and 2025.”
The study found an increase in the number of cases of assailants dressing as federal agents to rob, assault and rape immigrants.
Of the 31 known impersonation cases last year, 84% involved individuals identifying as ICE, Border Patrol or other DHS officers, with at least six instances documented so far in 2026, the report says.
“In mid-January, a man broke into a house in Pittsburgh, claiming to be an ICE agent, and attempted to assault a teenager with a knife. In San Diego, the police reported that, on Feb. 12, a man attacked the Hispanic manager of a restaurant by putting his arm around his neck and claiming that he was undocumented and was going to arrest him.”
Several states have passed laws to strengthen data privacy protections in response to the administration’s aggressive efforts to gather and centralize personal information to enhance its deportation campaign, the council reported.
Washington state enacted legislation limiting the sharing of data collected from automatic license plate readers and barring the use of such information for immigration enforcement purposes. Maryland has limited public record requests and banned the sale of personal information to organizations involved in immigration enforcement. A new Oregan law requires written confirmation from data brokers that the selling of individuals’ data will not be used for federal immigration purposes.
But the invasion of Americans’ privacy is not solely for use in immigration enforcement operations, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
“As the administration pursues dubious ‘domestic terrorism’ investigations to deter political dissent, DHS will be able to deploy AI-augmented tools to monitor and analyze people’s travel patterns, social networks, online posts and commercial activity to predict their threat levels and identify protesters. The administration also intends to use some of its newly consolidated data to purge voter rolls, in a process that is bound to wrongly disenfranchise eligible Americans.”
The federal government can use information to create databases not only to track immigrants, but also to seek retribution against citizens it considers disloyal to Trump. Hence, laws limiting the sharing of data may not be enough, the center explained.
“While stringent safeguards on use and access could mitigate these dangers, those safeguards can always be removed by an administration with authoritarian tendencies or be defeated through hacking or other technical means. The consolidation alone thus poses grave risks that are magnified in the absence of meaningful oversight and controls.”
Another series of bills aims to deter state and local governments from participating in U.S. immigration enforcement operations.
This category of legislation includes “efforts to limit or add guardrails to their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies by restricting 287(g) agreements, which deputize state and local police to perform certain immigration enforcement functions. Some have also taken measures to protect sensitive locations like schools and hospitals, as well as reduce state participation in civil immigration detention activities,” the council reported.
A Maryland law prohibits state and local law enforcement from entering 287(g) agreements and requires the termination of all such existing contracts. New Mexico passed legislation prohibiting the signing of immigration detention contracts, blocking the sale of public property for detention purposes and terminating existing 287(g) contracts.
Jessica Inez Martinez
“By ending state and local participation in civil immigration detention contracts and prohibiting 287(g) agreements, New Mexico takes a clear step away from systems that separate families and cause lasting harm in our communities,” said Jessica Inéz Martínez, director of policy and coalition building at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.
However, federal challenges to New Mexico’s legislation and to a Virginia law severely restricting 287(g) agreements have essentially placed a hold on similar measures in other states, the council reported.
“State law may not stand as an obstacle to the enforcement of federal law,” the U.S. Department of Justice argued in a motion against the New México statute. “And under intergovernmental immunity principles, state governments may not regulate or discriminate against the federal government.”
Courts are still processing these competing claims.