New Wyoming law asks law enforcement to act like ICE, generating concern over constitutional violations

The Laramie County Sheriff’s Office, one of the state’s larger police agencies, is advising deputies to limit enforcement of Wyoming’s new law invalidating driver’s licenses some states issue to undocumented immigrants. 

County attorneys who reviewed the new law warned the department it would be difficult for deputies to enforce without violating people’s constitutional rights, according to a departmental guidance document provided to WyoFile. 

“The last thing anyone wants is expensive, time-consuming, and potentially embarrassing litigation over these new laws,” the guidance reads. 

In essence, the concern in Laramie County boils down to one raised often by opponents of the law during legislative debate this past winter. Deputies and police officers, who are not federal immigration enforcement officers, are not well equipped to determine whether a person they pull over on suspicion of a traffic offense, or other local infraction, is in the country legally or not. That could make traffic stops unconstitutionally long, the guidance warns. 

County attorneys suggested the department only cite or arrest undocumented immigrants using driver’s licenses from two states, Connecticut and Delaware. Those two states issue licenses that clearly state the person is in the country illegally. 

That finding is in line with the limitations hit by another state, Florida, when lawmakers there sought to keep undocumented immigrants from driving in 2023. Florida ultimately only restricted such licenses from Connecticut and Delaware. 

As many as 19 states issue licenses to undocumented people that indicate the carrier is not a citizen. But drivers carrying the same license could just as well be in the country legally on a wide variety of valid visas. Officials from other agencies, including the Wyoming Highway Patrol, told WyoFile their officers will ask drivers for proof of lawful presence in the country if they pull over a driver using a license that indicates they’re not a citizen. 

But deputies aren’t familiar with such documents and might not know if they’re valid, Laramie County Chief Deputy Aaron Veldheer told WyoFile. Deputies can call the feds to verify someone’s status, or try to enlist a handful of deputies in the department trained by ICE in immigration enforcement, Veldheer said. But if there’s no quick answer or evidence of some other crime, they can’t detain a driver indefinitely.

Meanwhile, immigration attorneys and advocates, and even the Mexican Consulate in Denver, highlighted the law’s implementation with social media posts advising drivers they have the right to stay silent if local law enforcement asks about their immigration status. Laramie County’s analysis appears to agree with that, reminding deputies that “a marked license holder is not required to answer any questions, with or without Miranda warnings.”

Laramie County’s fear of litigation is valid, according to attorneys. Rosie Read, a Jackson attorney and director of the Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project, said she believed the new law to be the “most restrictive anti-immigrant law in the country.” She hoped and expected it to be challenged on its constitutionality, she said.

It’s unclear if anyone has been arrested or cited for driving with one of the now-banned licenses, which other state legislatures have created to ensure that drivers pass a test and have insurance even if they’re in the country illegally. 

Wyoming Highway Patrol officers have not yet cited or arrested anyone for violating the new law, Col. Tim Cameron, the agency’s chief, told WyoFile.

Outside of this new law, Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozack has been one of the state’s more vocal advocates for working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He has placed his jail and some of his deputies at the federal government’s disposal through agreements with ICE as that agency ramps up detentions and deportations around the country, including in Wyoming. 

Laramie County law enforcement wasn’t alone in expressing some concern about the new law, with questions about its implementation popping up around the state. In Teton County, Sheriff Matt Carr told the Jackson Hole News&Guide earlier this month that his agency was waiting on guidance from the Wyoming Department of Transportation. But a WYDOT spokesperson told WyoFile the agency isn’t preparing any guidance. 

On Tuesday, Carr told WyoFile he had now directed his deputies to model their enforcement on WHP’s guidance to troopers. 

WHP’s guidance reminds officers that drivers can’t be pulled over because of suspicion about their immigration status alone, Cameron told WyoFile. 

“The stops are not based on driver’s license status but based on the observations of a [traffic or criminal] violation by that trooper,” Cameron said. 

When WHP officers are handed a driver’s license with markings indicating the person is not a U.S. citizen, they are instructed to request documentation demonstrating a lawful presence in the country, Cameron said. That’s something the Laramie County deputies have been advised against doing, according to that department’s policy.

Doing so “would require the [deputy] to have some knowledge of immigration documents, their significance, and the validity of these documents,” the policy reads. 

Gov. Mark Gordon allowed the driver’s license bill — a top priority of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus — to become law without his signature, expressing reservations but choosing not to veto it. He may well have been overridden had he tried a veto. 

“My hope is that Wyoming law enforcement resources are used to assist in illegal presence operations but not take the lead in determining one’s status through credentials both issued and dictated by other states’ laws,” Gordon wrote in a letter explaining his decision at the time. 

The law includes either a fine or a jail sentence as punishment for driving with one of these licenses. It will fall on individual departments, and their officers on the street, to decide whether someone found driving with such a license is cited or detained, Allen Thompson, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, told WyoFile.

There is no consensus among his organization’s members on whether to conduct an arrest or write a ticket, he said. But, Thompson noted, if someone does not have a licensed driver to take the wheel, officers will likely be reluctant to let them drive away after a traffic stop.

Undocumented immigrants living in Wyoming carry driver’s licenses from other states that offer them to people without lawful presence in the country, previous WyoFile reporting has found. Now, depending on the county, when those Wyomingites take to the road, they’ll be running the risk of being fined, at best, and in a worst-case scenario, jailed and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

In Teton County, drivers stopped with a license issued to undocumented immigrants may be booked into jail, Carr said. And after criticism from U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman and state-level Republicans, Carr has announced that his jail will comply with ICE requests to hold people picked up on suspicion of local crimes for 48 hours upon the federal agency’s request. 

Teton County, however, is not among the five sheriff’s departments that signed agreements to facilitate the transfer of immigrants here illegally into the federal detention and deportation system. During President Donald Trump’s second term, that system has expanded its reach in an unprecedented fashion and is likely to grow further after a massive funding infusion from Republicans in Congress. 

Under pressure to boost deportation numbers, ICE is increasingly targeting undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions for deportation. A recent analysis of ICE arrest data by WyoFile and the Colorado Sun found the majority of people detained by the federal agency in Wyoming do not have criminal convictions, though they may have pending charges.

Read has lately seen people arrested on suspicion of fairly minor local infractions quickly picked up by ICE from jail, she said. 

Her advice to undocumented immigrants throughout the state is to make sure they give law enforcement no opportunity to effect a traffic stop, given the uncertainty of the result. “Drive minimally, and if you must drive, be very careful, repair cracks in your windshield, make sure your tail lights are working, do everything you can to make sure you’re not going to be pulled over,” she told WyoFile this week. 

Notably, the five sheriff’s departments that have signed agreements with ICE are located along major highways. Interstate 80’s Sweetwater, Carbon and Laramie counties have all inked contracts with the federal agency that allow immigration enforcement by deputies to varying degrees. They are joined by Campbell County, which lies along Interstate 90, and Natrona County, astride the north-south Interstate 25.  

Laramie, Sweetwater and Natrona counties have all signed the broadest level of agreement ICE offers to local law enforcement. Referred to as the “task force” model, it allows deputies in those counties to question “any alien or person believed to be an alien” about their right to be in the country, according to a copy of the agreement. 

While most of the ICE agreements apply to deputies working inside jails, the task force model allows participating officers to question people about their immigration status during routine police work on the streets of their communities. 

In Laramie County, the deputies who are participating in the task force will likely be able to enforce the driver’s license law, Veldheer said. 

Fear and anxiety

Even as state lawmakers join the Trump administration in seeking to make life more difficult for immigrants illegally working in Wyoming, Read said there’s no evidence it’s driving people to return voluntarily to home countries they left for better opportunities. 

“The primary effect I’m seeing is fear and anxiety,” she said, “everybody in the non-white, non-English speaking community is so on edge, so afraid.” 

Neighboring Colorado is among the states that issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. The Mexican Consulate in Denver, in a social media post, warned its citizens who live in Wyoming or travel through the state to consider alternative routes or modes of transportation other than driving themselves, if they carry such a license. 

The consulate also reminded drivers that if they’re stopped, they have the right to contact a lawyer and the right to remain silent about their immigration status. Read is offering people the same advice, she said, but she cannot guarantee a stop won’t still result in an arrest if someone is driving on one of the now invalid licenses.