The last vote taken late Monday night in the Senate killed a bill that critics said would have sanctioned “racial profiling” in law enforcement.

Senators were heading into their eighth hour of debate after the lunch break and had just spent 30 minutes deciding how to define health care to exclude abortions. Next, they had to decide whether to keep alive the most sweeping immigration enforcement bill introduced this session.

Three pages of amendments were in front of them from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which removed key provisions of Senate File 124, titled “Illegal immigration-identify, report, detain and deport.” 

Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, stood up at his desk and voiced concern about the quality of the legislation the upper chamber was putting out.

“At what point do we pull the plug on some of these bills that aren’t quite ready for prime time?” he asked. “I know we try our best to accommodate our fellow senators who we care about and we respect and the issues.

“But trying to drag bills across the finish line that are so heavily amended and so in need of a lot of work, I don’t think does this chamber justice.”

Lawmakers were up against a hard deadline Monday to get bills past an initial vote on the floor. Any bill that didn’t get pushed forward to a second reading that day would die. Nine bills met this fate in the Senate when leadership adjourned, and 38 bills met the same fate in the House.

Here are 7 different ways to be out of status in the U.S.

When asked the last week of January how many of the3,500 migrants or immigrants arrested since Trump took office have criminal records, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “All of them, because they illegally broke our nation’s laws.”

“I know the last administration didn’t see it that way, so it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, but that’s exactly what they are.”

Prior legislators and White House administrations did make more distinctions. And so does the law.

If a migrant crosses the border illegally, for instance, it can be a misdemeanor or a felony. Overstaying a visa is a different kind of violation. When the term undocumented is used, what does that mean?

While President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have each suggested there are 20-30 million migrants in the country, most demographers put the estimate at half as much — ranging from the 11 million people Pew estimated in 2024, to 14 million estimated by the Center for Immigration Studies and 16.8 million estimated by the Federation for American Immigration Reform in 2023 (the last two organizations both advocate for less immigration).

USCIS has announced that it is establishing a new form and process by which undocumented immigrants may register with the government, pursuant to a decades-old but rarely enforced provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The notice states that, with limited exceptions, all unregistered noncitizens (children who previously registered but later turned 14 years old) in the United States must comply with the registration requirements, and that failure to comply will result in criminal and civil penalties, including misdemeanor prosecution and fines. The USCIS announcement includes details on who has already registered, who must apply for registration, and how to register. The New York Times calls this effort “a drastic escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to push millions of immigrants in the country illegally to leave on their own,” adding that, “Administration officials have repeatedly implored such immigrants to depart. Now they are adding an implicit threat.”  WIAP will continue to monitor and keep the public apprised of developments regarding the registration requirement.