Senate committee kills bill requiring local law enforcement partner with ICE
March 18, 2026
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
A bill that would have required local law enforcement agencies in Idaho to enter into agreements with federal immigration authorities won’t advance in the Legislature, after members of the Idaho Senate State Affairs Committee voted 5-4 on March 16 to hold the legislation.
House Bill 659 would have mandated that sheriff’s offices and police departments around the state apply for formal 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, obligating them to work closely with ICE to identify and process people held in local jails for possible deportation. The bill also made local agencies responsible for additional training, as well as adopting and installing ICE’s IT infrastructure and turning over control of all “information obtained or developed” under the agreement.
Representatives of statewide law enforcement were firmly opposed to the bill, including Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler and Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon.
Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler. File Photo.
Wheeler told the Reader in early March that the legislation represented “one of the first steps taken by the federal government in the creation of a federal and state law enforcement agency.”
“Local law enforcement agencies enforce Idaho state laws and ICE enforces federal laws,” he said. “I will not start enforcing federal laws, and I do not want federal agencies to enforce Idaho state laws.”
Coon told the Reader that he was uneasy with the agreement’s open-ended obligation to continue with the program into an indefinite future. He, like Wheeler and other law enforcement officials throughout Idaho, also questioned the costs of participating in what was repeatedly described as an “unfunded mandate.”
“There are too many unknowns for my support for a state statue,” Coon told the Reader.
H.B. 659 passed the House in a 41-27 vote on March 6. Rep. Cornel Rasor, R-Sagle, supported the bill in both the Local Government Committee and in the full House, while Rep. Mark Sauter-R-Sandpoint, opposed it.
According to the Idaho Capital Sun, members of the Senate State Affairs Committee also balked at the language in the bill — particularly the section obligating local agencies to take part in “any future or successor programs” within the agreement.
Beyond that, some law enforcement officials such as Homedale Police Chief Jeff Eidemiller — whose community includes a large Hispanic population — questioned the political ramifications of the bill.
“Over the last three to four years, we’ve seen the trust and the cooperation between law enforcement and the Hispanic community erode to the point where it’s almost nonexistent,” Eidemiller told the committee, according to the Sun, and added that H.B. 659 may give the impression that police and sheriff’s deputies would be performing immigration enforcement, thus discouraging residents from reporting crimes out of fear.
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