Photo courtesy of West Virginia Legislative Photography West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tom Willis answers questions Monday from Senate Minority Leader Mike Woelfel about a bill requiring cooperation with ICE.

CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Senate passed a bill to require cooperation of law enforcement in handing over suspected undocumented immigrants to federal authorities, though existing state executive orders already require this.

Senate Bill 615, requiring persons with illegal immigration status be turned over to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), passed the Senate on Monday in a 32-2 vote. The bill now heads to the House of Delegates.

SB 615 requires state, county and local law enforcement agencies to notify and cooperate with ICE to the full extent authorized under federal and state law when an individual in their custody is determined to be in the United States illegally. The bill also prohibits state and local governments and law enforcement agencies from adopting any policy, regulation or ordinance to avoid complying with the proposed new law.

“This bill sends a signal that West Virginia is a state of law and order and not chaos and lawlessness,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tom Willis, R-Berkeley.

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that we’re talking about state cooperation or state following federal laws,” Willis continued. “These laws are federal immigration laws. They’ve been on the books for many years under Republican presidents, under Democratic presidents. They’re not new laws. But what we have seen that has been new over the past several years are some states and some cities choosing whether to follow the law or to actively resist the laws in some cases or speak against them.”

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed an executive order in January 2025 directing the state Department of Homeland Security, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the state police and county and city law enforcement to cooperate with ICE and other federal law enforcement officials.

In August, Morrisey announced that memoranda of understanding have been signed between ICE and state law enforcement and correctional agencies in support of immigration policies put in place by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The West Virginia State Police are operating under the ICE 287(g) program through the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. The program allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to work with state, county and city law enforcement to take part in specific immigration enforcement roles. The state is also participating in the Warrant Service Officer Program, which allows state and local law enforcement to serve ICE administrative warrants.

According to WV MetroNews, ICE has offered incentives to state and local law enforcement agencies that cooperate with it, such as financial reimbursement, equipment and vehicles. West Virginia also is financially benefiting from processing detainees for ICE in state correctional facilities. According to West Virginia Watch, ICE pays DCR $90 per day per detainee.

To date, four immigrant detainees have been ordered released by federal judges in West Virginia because of due process violations of those detainees’ rights. According to ICE, more than 600 undocumented immigrants were arrested in West Virginia last month in a series of raids across the state, including Charleston, Huntington, Martinsburg, Moorefield, Morgantown and Beckley.

During debate on the bill Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, sought answers from Willis regarding instances where state and local law enforcement were not already cooperating with ICE.

“I’ve worked with law enforcement as a prosecuting attorney and as a juvenile judge for 47 years, and I have a lot of confidence and faith in those people that they would, in fact, always obey the law and always cooperate with federal law enforcement,” Woelfel said. “if you’ve seen situations out there that are contrary to my 47 years of experience as an attorney, I’d like to hear about those since I’m not on your committee.”

“This bill prevents future violations of the principle that local … municipalities and law enforcement agencies are required to cooperate to the fullest extent possible with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement,” Willis said. “To say that you’re not aware of it because it hasn’t happened locally in your prosecutorial experience, it’s a fallacious argument. You’re saying it couldn’t possibly happen in the future because it hasn’t happened in the past?”

Senate Assistant Minority Leader Joey Garcia, D-Marion, said he was concerned about immigrants legally in the U.S. who are sometimes being rounded up in ICE raids across the country and held in custody for days or weeks before being released.

“I would like to think that if I’m driving down the road with a last name that is Hispanic, and I don’t have my birth certificate, which I don’t have my birth certificate except for in a firebox in our house, do I get detained?” Garcia asked. “I could probably find some help and maybe I could clear things up quickly. But some of these people are staying in jail in places where people have died the last couple years.

“I’ve had clients that have had these types of situations about being detained in jails while waiting for the federal process to take place without having a charge against their name,” Garcia continued. “That is wrong. We should not be helping that. And if anything, we should be providing clarification.”

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Patrica Rucker, R-Jefferson, said as the only member of the Senate who had legally immigrated to the U.S. from Venezuela in the early 1980s, she supported the bill.

“I can tell you that in all the years that I’ve been here, even when my maiden name was Puertas and clearly not sounding like a typical American last name, I never once had any problems with law enforcement or questions that made me feel uncomfortable,” she said.