In September 2025, Roots Reborn got word that federal immigration officers were searching Ka La‘i Ola, the state’s temporary housing project for displaced Lahaina fire survivors.

“We dropped everything because we knew that there were so many people who were at risk there,” said Veronica Mendoza Jachowski, the executive director of the Maui-based nonprofit supporting immigration justice.

Earlier that year, President Donald Trump’s administration had ended protections for “sensitive locations” like churches and schools from immigration enforcement. Nothing was off limits anymore, and immigrant communities on Maui and around the country have been on edge ever since. 

But next year, a new law will take effect in Hawai‘i that will restore protections to community locations operated by state and county governments. It also will require the posting of written policies and training of staff to respond to immigration agents. 

It’s one of six major immigration bills passed by state lawmakers earlier this year that strengthen protections for Hawai‘i’s immigrant community in reaction to the ramped up enforcement under the Trump administration.

Some lawmakers have said they didn’t want immigration enforcement in Hawai‘i to escalate to the level seen on the Mainland, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have killed protesters and people who were not the target of operations, according to multiple news reports.

The new Hawai‘i laws are geared toward civil immigration issues and won’t change criminal law enforcement, immigration attorneys say.

“The idea behind these bills is they can do what they want to do at the federal level. We can only control how we respond,” explained Aparna Patrie, a private practice immigration attorney on Maui. 

Patrie, whose experience includes working as a lawyer for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary that drafts federal immigration laws, is one of the legal experts participating in the Campaign for Immigrant Justice’s “Due Process Roadshow” that seeks to educate local organizations about the new laws impacting the communities they serve. The roadshow also includes roundtable discussions with local law enforcement across the state.

The Hawai‘i Coalition for Immigrant Rights, which is overseeing the campaign and roadshow, is a statewide coalition of immigrant-led and immigrant-serving organizations, advocates, workers, students and faith leaders who are working together to advance justice and inclusion for immigrant and migrant communities across Hawai‘i, according to coalition’s website.

Creating trust between the community and local law enforcement is one of the big themes behind the slate of new laws, Patrie explained. 

“Without the trust of our immigrant communities, we are not going to have people reporting crimes to the police,” Patrie said. “We are not going to have a safe community without that trust.”

The laws took effect in June when they were signed by Gov. Josh Green. But Act 162, the law creating protections for community locations, gives government agencies a deadline of Jan. 1 to comply.

The most “heavy-hitting” of the new laws is Act 141, which specifically curbs cooperation between federal immigration agencies and local law enforcement. It bars state and county agencies from striking a 287(g) agreement with federal agencies, which essentially deputize local officers with the power to carry out immigration enforcement. 

“Having this kind of cooperation is the single most useful way for the federal government to multiply its abilities and its force to conduct immigration enforcement,” Patrie explained. “This was one that we really had our eye on because it was going to cut that off at the source as effectively as possible.”

Tina Sablan, policy manager of The Legal Clinic, a nonpartisan, non-faith-based, independent nonprofit on O‘ahu, pointed out that federal officials have publicly stated their pursuit of a quota for immigration arrests, and they need the help of local officers to do it. 

Now, local law enforcement cannot ask about an individual’s immigration status or share private information about an individual with federal immigration authorities unless there is a criminal issue involved, Patrie said. They also can’t detain individuals on the basis of a hold request, transfer someone to federal immigration authorities unless authorized by a judicial warrant or judicial determination of probable cause, or use their own resources or technology to aid in federal civil immigration enforcement operations.

Unless required by law or court order, they also can’t allow federal immigration authorities to interview people in local custody unless the individuals consent in writing.

In September 2025, the Department of Homeland Security said it had more than 1,000 287(g) program agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies in 40 states. While Hawai‘i was not one of them, Patrie said there had still been cooperation with federal immigration authorities, such as allowing them to use local jail space to hold people who had been detained during raids on Neighbor Islands before they were flown to the federal detention center on O‘ahu.

In July, after a spate of reported ICE sightings around the island, the Maui Police Department told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative that while federal law enforcement notifies MPD when it conducts operations within the county, the department “does not participate in immigration enforcement.” 

Before the bill limiting federal cooperation took effect, “MPD adopted a department policy reaffirming that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility and outlining our role consistent with state law,” police department spokesperson Alana Pico said. 

MPD did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about how it has cooperated with federal immigration authorities in the past.

During the recent legislative session, the State of Hawai‘i Organization of Police Officers, the union representing more than 2,700 officers, raised concerns that the bill could create confusion for local law enforcement on their duties. State Sen. Troy Hashimoto of Central Maui, one of the lawmakers who introduced the bill, said in July after the law took effect that the goal was to keep it narrow enough so that police could still coordinate with federal agencies on non-immigration cases.

Sablan said another law passed by the State Legislature that has piqued “a lot of interest” is Act 162, which creates protections for community locations.

By Jan. 1, all state- and county-operated facilities must adopt and post written policies identifying non-public areas. They also will be required to conduct annual staff training on procedures for responding to immigration agents and recognizing warrants signed by a judge as opposed to ICE’s administrative warrants, which aren’t sufficient to enter non-public spaces. They also will have to post multilingual notices that services are available to everyone, regardless of immigration status.

The idea is ultimately about “making sure that people feel safe going to places like schools and hospitals and accessing those essential services,” Sablan said. 

Mendoza Jachowski is hopeful the law will create more peace of mind at places like Ka La‘i Ola, a public-private housing project created by the state, Maui County and Home Aid Hawai‘i for fire survivors who didn’t qualify for federal assistance. 

When ICE was reported there last year, Mendoza Jachowski said the nonprofit’s rapid response team, El Pueblo En Acción, canvassed “every single house” to drop off pamphlets about people’s rights and also held training sessions for the residents there. 

Mendoza Jachowski said the new law would ease the pressure on “an already overcapacitated organization” like Roots Reborn, which regularly holds training sessions to educate the public on their constitutional rights.

While the law only applies to state and county facilities, Patrie and Sablan said nothing is stopping local businesses or organizations from creating similar guidelines for their own properties. 

Now Roots Reborn can focus on those private organizations like local businesses, including restaurants. 

“There’s all of these big spaces where our community … need access to those things, to those resources, that are now being protected,” Mendoza Jachowski said. “We can focus on maybe some other niche areas where this could continue to make a difference. So that’s really great. It’s a force multiplier in a good way.”

More importantly, knowing that state officials aren’t working with ICE creates an opportunity to rebuild trust between communities and institutions, which is “exactly what we’ve worked so hard to do since the fires,” said Mendoza Jachowski, whose nonprofit was created in response to the 2023 disaster.

Churches where some members have feared ICE showing up at worship services could also adopt their own policies indicating private spaces that would require permission to enter. Patrie said she couldn’t give legal advice to specific churches because every situation is different, and they would need to consult with their own attorneys about the best policies for their own spaces. 

The other laws that took effect earlier this year also seek to increase access to services and streamline the legal process for immigrants. 

Act 142 would create “clear, consistent, statewide standards” for U and T visa certifications. U visas are for survivors of crimes, and the first step in obtaining one requires getting certification that verifies the person is a victim of a qualifying crime and was cooperative at any stage of the case, whether in reporting it, testifying in court or filing a temporary restraining order, Sablan explained. T visas are for survivors of human trafficking. 

Certifications for these visas do not grant status on their own, but they help confirm the person is a victim of a crime and allows them to move forward with the process of getting the visas, which the federal government must issue. 

Sablan explained that before, many agencies had different practices, and survivors could sometimes wait months for a decision. Now, each certifying agency must have at least one designated and trained official to review certification requests, and the agency has to respond within 45 days.

Act 143 reduces the maximum sentence for nonviolent misdemeanors from 365 days to 364 days. Patrie said that people who are convicted of low-level offenses such as traffic violations, trespassing or shoplifting often get probation and no jail time at all. But under immigration law, someone convicted of a misdemeanor that has a maximum sentence of 365 days can be deported immediately. 

Reducing the maximum sentencing by a day “doesn’t impact really what is happening at the local level in terms of what type of sentence that person gets,” Patrie said. “All it does is ensure that they don’t have this huge immigration consequence.”

The law also created funding for a “Padilla lawyer” — named after a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling — in the public defender’s office who can advise attorneys and clients on the immigration consequences of pleas and sentences. 

Act 161, known as the TRUTH Act, aims to complement the measure limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies by requiring anyone in local custody to be informed of their constitutional rights through a written consent form available in their own language before any civil immigration interview. The person must provide written consent if they agree to participate. Local agencies also have to notify the person in custody if ICE is asking to hold or transfer them.

All records related to federal immigration authorities’ access to detained individuals provided by a state or local law enforcement agency will be public records.

Sablan said this is only the beginning of Hawai‘i’s effort to implement the laws. Some of the new laws are going to take more time, such as Act 179, which will create a language access education and workforce development program at the University of Hawai‘i to build up a “trained and culturally competent” pool of interpreters and translators, according to the measure.

Maui was the first stop on the immigration law education tour, and Sablan said the effort would continue across the other three counties. 

The goal, she said, is “to raise awareness that these laws are in place and also work with the agencies that are responsible for implementing them to make sure that we’re all holding them accountable and that these laws are actually being translated into reality.”