State Responses to Immigration: A Database of All State Legislation	Home > State Law Database

State Responses to Immigration is a free, searchable data tool designed to generate information about all immigration-related bills and resolutions introduced in state legislatures. Classified by state, region, subject area, legislative type, and bill status, this is the only database that allows users to find out, for example, the status of enforcement initiatives introduced in their state, compare the number of bills regulating employment, or evaluate the passage rate of health-related bills across the nation.

State Responses to Immigration is a joint project of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and a research team at the New York University School of Law (NYU). We encourage you to read about the methodology we employed to gather and classify immigration-related legislation before using the tool.

We have posted the 2007 legislation and will add data for 2008, in addition to 2001-2006 data, in the coming months.  Note: The database assigns a bill's status based on its status as of December 31 of the given year. Suggested citation:  Migration Policy Institute and New York University School of Law. 2007. State Responses to Immigration: A Database of All State Legislation. www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/statelaws.cfm.

2007 State Immigration Legislation At A Glance (download the entire report )

• In 2007, 1,059 immigration-related state bills and resolutions were introduced in state legislatures nationwide, of which only 167 (or 16 percent) were enacted into law. The vast majority of bills proposed in 2007 either expired (33 percent) or remained pending (45 percent) without any legislative resolution. 

• According to MPI/NYU-devised classification, measures that expand the rights of immigrants (313 bills) exceeded any other type of legislation proposed during 2007.

Number of State Laws Introduced by Legislative Typology, 2007

Notes: The legislative typologies’ total (1,308) exceeds the 1,059 unique bills because categories are not mutually exclusive.  A bill can be classified under more than one legislative typology because of the existence of omnibus bills that address multiple aspects of immigrant and immigration policy. Measures such as “regulate employment,” “regulate law enforcement,” and “other” stand alone, i.e., they were not classified either as bills that expand or contract the rights and benefits of immigrants. See Highlights & Methodology Report’s Part II.

Source: Migration Policy Institute and New York University School of Law. 2007. State Responses to Immigration: A Database of All State Legislation. www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/statelaws.cfm.

• The top three states to propose immigration measures were Texas (104 bills), New York (98), and Tennessee (83). But, the three states that actually saw the most immigration legislation signed into law were Hawaii (15), Texas (11), and Arizona (9). View the top ten states that proposed and those that passed immigration legislation in 2007.

• The top three subject areas for proposed immigration measures in 2007 were employment (364 bills), enforcement of immigration law (187 bills), and identification (120 bills). View the number of state bills by subject area (2007).

• Arizona and Oklahoma passed comprehensive immigration bills through omnibus immigration legislation in 2007.  Here, we define omnibus immigration legislation as any bill that combines three or more subject areas into one single piece of legislation.  Using this definition, ten other states also considered omnibus bills during the 2007 legislative session. View omnibus bills proposed and passed by subject area (2007).

More quick tables:

• Table 1. State Immigration Legislation by Legislative Type and by Bill Status: 2007
• Table 2. State Immigration Legislation by Region and by Bill Status: 2007
• Table 3. State Immigration Legislation for Large and Fast-Growing Immigration States by Bill Status: 2007
• Table 4. State Immigration Legislation by Subject Area and by Bill Status: 2007
• Table 5. State Immigration Legislation by State and by Bill Status: 2007