OHIO LEGISLATIVE SERVICE COMMISSION
Office of Research Legislative Budget
www.lsc.ohio.gov and Drafting Office
H.B. 666 Bill Analysis
135th General Assembly
Click here for H.B. 666’s Fiscal Note
Version: As Introduced
Primary Sponsor: Rep. Williams
Effective date:
Emily E. Wendel, Attorney
SUMMARY
▪ Names the bill the Protecting Ohio Communities Act.
▪ Requires every law enforcement agency in Ohio to take certain actions to cooperate
with federal officials in the enforcement of federal immigration law.
▪ Requires a law enforcement agency to participate in federal programs to share
information about arrestees with federal immigration authorities.
▪ Requires a law enforcement agency to honor federal detainer requests regarding
persons who are unlawfully present in the U.S. and otherwise to cooperate and comply
with federal officials in the enforcement of federal immigration law.
▪ Adds a provision to Ohio law that mirrors a provision of federal law that makes certain
aliens ineligible for state or local public benefits.
▪ Requires a state or local governmental entity that administers a state or local public
benefit to use the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE)
to verify aliens’ eligibility for those benefits.
▪ Prohibits any state or local governmental agency or political subdivision from adopting
an ordinance, policy, directive, rule, or resolution that prohibits or restricts a public
official or employee from taking certain actions with respect to immigration
enforcement.
▪ Requires each law enforcement agency and each state or local governmental entity that
administers a public benefit to notify its officers and employees of the bill’s
requirements.
▪ Requires each county, township, and municipal corporation to submit an annual report
to the Attorney General, confirming that the entity is complying with the bill.
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▪ Specifies that a political subdivision or local law enforcement agency that is not in
compliance with the bill is ineligible to receive homeland security funding and 10% of
any Local Government Fund (LGF) distributions it would otherwise receive from the
state.
▪ Redirects forfeited LGF payments to fund the State Highway Patrol.
▪ States that the General Assembly makes several findings and declarations concerning
state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
▪ Declares an emergency.
▪ Includes a severability clause.
DETAILED ANALYSIS
Protecting Ohio Communities Act
The bill specifies that it must be known as the Protecting Ohio Communities Act.1
Law enforcement activities
Background – enforcement of federal immigration law
The U.S. Constitution reserves to the federal government the power to make and
enforce immigration laws. State or local law enforcement agencies cannot independently
determine whether a person is unlawfully present in the U.S. and cannot arrest or detain a
person solely on that basis. Instead, federal authorities are responsible for enforcing
immigration laws. Federal immigration authorities may request assistance from state and local
officials but cannot force them to help. Federal law and Ohio law require state and local
government entities to allow their employees to exchange citizenship or immigration status
information with federal immigration officials, but the federal government cannot otherwise
require state or local officials to assist federal immigration authorities.2
One of the primary ways in which state and local law enforcement agencies come into
contact with federal immigration authorities is through the federal Criminal Apprehension
Program. Under the program, when a state or local law enforcement agency arrests a person
and submits the person’s fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under
standard booking procedures, the FBI notifies U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
of the person’s identity.
If ICE determines that the person appears to be unlawfully present in the U.S. and
decides to pursue the person’s removal based on ICE priorities, ICE submits a detainer request
1
Section 5 of the bill.
2
R.C. 9.63. See also 8 United States Code (U.S.C.) 1373; Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 411
(2012); and Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 935 (1997).
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to the state or local agency, asking the agency to keep the person in custody for up to 48 hours
after the person is scheduled to be released from state or local custody, so that ICE can arrange
to take the person into federal custody.3 Under federal law, the state or local agency is not
required to honor the detainer request. If a court later finds that a detainer was not
constitutionally valid, the state or local officials – not ICE – may be held liable for wrongfully
imprisoning the person.4
Cooperation with federal immigration authorities
The bill requires every law enforcement agency in Ohio to take certain actions to
cooperate with federal officials in the enforcement of federal immigration law. “Law
enforcement agency” means a municipal or township police department, the office of a sheriff,
the State Highway Patrol, and any other state or local governmental body that enforces
criminal laws and that has employees who have a statutory power of arrest.
First, under the bill, a law enforcement agency must participate in any available program
operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or its successor department that allows
the law enforcement agency to submit to federal authorities information about an arrestee in
order to enable those authorities to determine whether the arrestee is unlawfully present in
the U.S. (Currently, this would be the Criminal Apprehension Program discussed above.)
Further, the bill requires a law enforcement agency immediately to report to the appropriate
U.S. immigration officials the identity of any arrestee whom a peace officer has reasonable
cause to believe is unlawfully present in the U.S.
Upon receiving a lawful federal request or order to do so, the bill requires a law
enforcement agency to detain a person who is unlawfully present in the U.S. until the person is
transferred into federal custody. And, a law enforcement agency otherwise must cooperate and
comply with federal officials in the enforcement of federal immigration law.
Current Ohio law does appear to require state and local governmental entities to honor
ICE detainer requests in at least some circumstances. The Revised Code specifically requires the
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to comply with ICE detainer requests for persons
who are being released from state custody after serving a prison term for a felony. And, the
statute requires state and local governments to comply with lawful requests for assistance from
federal immigration authorities, “to the extent that the request is consistent with the doctrine
of federalism.” A local government that violates that requirement is ineligible to receive
homeland security funding from the state. It appears that this provision of law has never been
enforced or interpreted by a court.5
3
8 U.S.C. 1357(d), 1373, and 1644 and 8 Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) 287.7. See also U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Criminal Apprehension Program, available at ice.gov under
“Immigration Enforcement.”
4
See, for example, Galarza v. Szalczyk, 745 F.3d 634, 639 (3d Cir. 2014).
5
R.C. 9.63. See also R.C. 2909.30, not in the bill.
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Since 2014, several agencies in Ohio have refused at least one ICE detainer request.
However, all of those agencies grant most of the detainer requests they receive. Between 2014
and 2023, Ohio agencies denied a total of 353 out of 33,693 detainer requests, a 1% refusal
rate. The Franklin County Jail – Ohio’s agency with the most refusals – refused 298 out of 8,096
requests, for a refusal rate of about 4%. The other Ohio agencies that refused requests during
that period refused a total of 1-7 requests each. It is not clear from the available data why the
agencies refused the requests. The refusals might have been for reasons other than sanctuary
policies, such as that the agencies determined that they did not actually have the relevant
person in custody.6
Public benefits
Background – aliens’ eligibility for benefits under federal law
With certain exceptions, the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) provides that any alien (that is, someone who is not a U.S.
citizen or national) who is not a “qualified alien” is ineligible for federal, state, or local public
benefits. “Qualified alien” includes several categories of persons, including lawful permanent
residents and persons who have been granted asylum or refugee status. In general, a person
who holds a temporary visa, such as a student or tourist visa, or a person who is unlawfully
present in the U.S. is not considered a qualified alien.7
Benefits for which an alien must be qualified
On the state or local level, PRWORA generally requires an alien who receives any of the
following benefits to be qualified under federal law to receive those benefits:8
▪ Any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license provided or funded
by a state or local government agency, except for certain aliens with temporary
employment visas and for foreign nationals who are not physically present in the U.S.,
and except as otherwise provided under an applicable treaty;
▪ Any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary
education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for
which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family
eligibility unit by a state or local government.
Benefits available to anyone
PRWORA does not prevent a state or local government from providing any of the
following benefits to an unqualified alien:
6
Syracuse University, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), “Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Detainers,” available at trac.syr.edu under “Immigration,” “Tools.”
7
8 U.S.C. 1621(a) and 1641(b).
8
8 U.S.C. 1621(c).
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▪ Assistance for health care items and services that are necessary for the treatment of an
emergency medical condition, other than for an organ transplant procedure;
▪ Short-term, noncash, in-kind emergency disaster relief;
▪ Public health assistance for immunizations and for testing and treatment of symptoms
of communicable diseases;
▪ Programs, services, or assistance that deliver in-kind services at the community level, do
not condition assistance on the recipient’s income or resources, and are necessary for
the protection of life or safety, such as soup kitchens, crisis counseling and intervention,
and short-term shelter.
Further, under PRWORA, a state may, by statute, affirmatively provide eligibility for
unqualified aliens for benefits they otherwise could not receive. Ohio has one such exception,
which the bill does not change. Under continuing law, an unauthorized worker, or the worker’s
dependent, is eligible for workers’ compensation in Ohio if the worker is injured or killed at
work or contracts an occupational disease. Although the person’s employer would violate
federal law by employing the person, the employer still must pay premiums and assessments to
the state workers’ compensation fund to cover the person as an employee. In exchange, the
employer is not liable to the worker or the worker’s dependents for damages caused by the
injury, death, or disease.9
Finally, PRWORA does not apply to education. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that
the states may not deny a public K-12 education to children who are unlawfully present in the
U.S. This decision is based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which the
Court has found to give a certain level of protection to persons who are unlawfully present.10
That decision does not apply to higher education. Ohio law does not prohibit a student
who is unlawfully present from attending a college or university, but such a student cannot be
considered a resident of Ohio for purposes of receiving in-state tuition or other state
subsidies.11 An unlawfully present student also is ineligible for federal student grants or loans.12
Confirming eligibility for state or local benefits
The bill adds a provision to Ohio law that mirrors the provision of PRWORA that makes
certain aliens ineligible for state or local public benefits. And, the bill requires a state or local
governmental entity that administers a state or local public benefit to use the federal
Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) to verify aliens’ eligibility for
9
8 U.S.C. 1621(b) and (d) and R.C. 4123.01(A)(1)(b), not in the bill. See also Rajeh v. Steel City Corp.,
2004-Ohio-3211 (7th Dist. Ct. App. 2004).
10
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).
11
R.C. 3333.31(F)(2).
12
U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Office, Eligibility for Non-U.S. Citizens, available at
studentaid.gov via a keyword search for “noncitizen.”
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those benefits. Although continuing law requires state agencies to provide benefits only to
qualified aliens, the Revised Code currently does not require the use of SAVE to verify
applicants’ eligibility.
Under the bill, a “state or local governmental entity” is any agency, board, bureau,
commission, council, department, division, office, or other organized body established by the
state or a political subdivision for the exercise of any function of the state or a political
subdivision. “State or local public benefit” has the same meaning as under PRWORA.13
SAVE is a free, voluntary service offered by USCIS that allows a government agency to
submit information provided by an alien applicant over the internet and to receive a response
from USCIS about whether the applicant is eligible to receive the benefit. An agency could make
benefit eligibility determinations without using SAVE. However, SAVE provides additional
verification tools that otherwise might not be available to an agency, such as the ability to
confirm that the number on a person’s permanent resident card is associated with the person’s
name in federal records.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the following state
agencies in Ohio currently use SAVE to verify benefits eligibility. No local agencies are listed as
currently using SAVE.14
Agency Purpose
Department of Job and Family Services Food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
Medicaid, refugee assistance, disability insurance,
unemployment insurance
Department of Medicaid Medicaid
Department of Public Safety Driver’s license, state ID card, commercial driver’s license
State Board of Nursing Occupational licensing
Secretary of State Voter registration and voter list maintenance
Under the bill, a number of additional agencies must begin using SAVE, such as
occupational licensing boards and commissions other than the State Board of Nursing. And,
although it appears that few, if any, local governments administer public benefits in Ohio, the
bill requires those entities to use SAVE for that purpose.
13
R.C. 9.631(A) and (C) and 9.632(A).
14
R.C. 9.631(C). See also U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, SAVE, available at uscis.gov/save.
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