Introduction: New Mandates, No Preparation
Louisiana thrives when families can meet their basic needs—when people have access to food, health care, housing, and support in hard times. But a package of bills advancing in the Legislature would destabilize these safety-net programs, making them harder to administer and putting new barriers in the way of the very people they are meant to help.
Louisiana lawmakers are advancing two proposals—House Bill 307 and Senate Bill 100—that would require state agencies to verify the citizenship or immigration status of people accessing public benefits. Paired with Senate Bill 15, which imposes criminal penalties for unclear noncompliance, these proposals create a risky and unstable environment for the agencies that administer Louisiana’s safety-net programs, and the people who depend on them.
Together, these bills represent a new kind of policy threat—what advocates are calling “Everyone’s ICE Now” laws. They compel state public servants to act as federal immigration authorities—without funding, training, or clear rules. Major programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF already check for and exclude non-citizens under federal law—there is no mass of immigrants using Louisiana’s safety net.1 These bills don’t offer real savings, only confusion, deterrence, and the threat of prosecution.
Two Overlapping, Expansive Mandates
HB 307 applies to any agency or political subdivision offering a “benefit for which assistance is provided.” It does not define which benefits qualify or how verification must be done.
SB 100 applies to specific departments—including the Louisiana Department of Health, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), and the Department of Education—and mandates citizenship verification for all “services” they provide, a term defined circularly as “all services” of the named agencies. The result is no guidance at all—the mandate could reach into school supports, health clinics, elder care, domestic violence help, and more. In practice, the reach of these mandates is almost impossible to define.
Neither bill provides funding or guidance, leaving agency leaders to navigate this complex legal patchwork without support.
SB 15: Criminalizing Administrative Confusion
SB 15 adds criminal penalties for delays or missteps in immigration-related duties. Workers could face fines or jail for failing to comply with unclear rules—especially under HB 307, which requires reporting to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). SB 100 lacks this trigger, but the legal climate could still expose workers to risk.
LDH: New Duties, Rising Risk
These bills come as legislators consider major changes to the administration of Louisiana’s safety net by creating a “One Door” model for people to access services. House Bill 617 and House Bill 624 would shift SNAP (formerly food stamps) from DCFS to the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), which already manages Medicaid and WIC. This transition has the potential to support more integrated service delivery and reflects the health department’s central role in administering core public benefit programs.
Both HB 307 and SB 100 threaten to place additional and unpredictable burdens on LDH just as it is undergoing this major operational shift. Without funding, staffing support, or legal clarity, these bills could make implementation of the “one door” model far more difficult. LDH has consistently stepped up to take on new responsibilities—but these bills could undermine that work at a critical moment, serving neither the agency nor the public.
These changes also come as Congress is proposing budget cuts and structural changes to SNAP and Medicaid, threatening core state resources. These bills demand more from Louisiana’s agencies just as the federal funding they receive is threatened with cuts.
Who Is Harmed?
The combined impact of HB 307, SB 100, and SB 15 will fall hardest on:
- Families – who are eligible for help but face new documentation barriers or fear-based chilling effects—including U.S. citizen children in mixed-status households and citizens with no ties to immigration enforcement who may distrust government systems for valid historical or personal reasons. In Louisiana, an estimated 8% of children have at least one undocumented parent, putting a significant share of families at risk of being deterred from seeking essential services.2 For those children, safe access to food, housing, and care may be at stake.
- State workers, who could be punished for failing to comply with vague rules. This includes workers in helping professions like social work, nursing, or public health, who may face ethical or moral conflicts in carrying out immigration enforcement duties, especially under threat of criminal penalties.
- Communities that rely on trust in public programs like Medicaid, crime victim services, or school-based supports. These bills inject fear and bureaucracy into systems that only work when people trust them—and that trust is already in short supply.
Even U.S. citizens and lawful residents will be affected. These bills threaten to erode access, participation, and delivery across the safety net.
Conclusion: Pause and Reassess
These bills embed immigration enforcement into Louisiana’s safety net, with little guidance and high stakes. Lawmakers should reject HB 307, SB 100, and SB 15. Louisiana’s public servants are already doing critical work under complex and shifting conditions. They deserve clear guidance, proper resources, and the trust of lawmakers—not vague mandates that expose them to unnecessary risk. HB 307, SB 100, and SB 15 must be stopped or seriously reconsidered before irreversible harm is done.
- Ruth Ellen Wasem, Noncitizen Eligibility for Federal Public Assistance: Policy Overview, Cong. Rsch. Serv. RL33809 (Dec. 12, 2016), https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL33809.pdf. ↩︎
- Urban Institute, Children of Immigrants: 2024 State-Level Data Tool, https://apps.urban.org/features/children-of-immigrants/index.html. ↩︎