BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's Republican-controlled Senate advanced a bill Monday that would empower state and local law enforcement to arrest and jail people in the state who entered the U.S. illegally, similar to embattled legislation in Texas.
Amid national fights between Republican states and Democratic President Joe Biden over how and who should enforce the U.S.-Mexico border, Louisiana joins a growing list of legislatures seeking to expand states' authority over border enforcement.
Proponents of the bill, such as the legislation's author GOP state Sen. Valarie Hodges, say Louisiana has the “right to defend our nation.” Hodges has accused the federal government of neglecting responsibilities to enforce immigration law, an argument heard from GOP leaders across the country.
Opponents argue the bill is unconstitutional, will not do anything to make the state safer, and will only fuel negative and false rhetoric directed toward migrants.
Across the nation, reliably red legislatures have advanced tougher immigration enforcement measures. The Oklahoma House passed a bill that would prohibit state revenue from being used to provide benefits to those living in the state illegally. A bill in Tennessee, which is awaiting the governor's signature, would require law enforcement agencies in the state to communicate with federal immigration authorities if they discover people who are in the country illegally. Measures that mirror parts of the Texas law are awaiting the governor's signature in Iowa, while another is pending in Idaho's statehouse.
Although Louisiana does not border Mexico, bills and policies targeting migrants suspected of entering the country illegally have been pushed to the forefront over the past four months under new conservative leadership. One bill looks to ban sanctuary city policies that allow local law enforcement to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials unless ordered by a court. Another would set up funding to send Louisiana National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. New Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has also begun directing state agencies to collect and publish data on migrants in the state.
“I think all of us in here know that we have a crisis at the border and our federal government is not doing anything to help the states,” Sen. Hodges said during floor debate Monday.
Louisiana's bill would create the crime of “illegal entry or reentry” into Louisiana. Illegal reentry includes people who were previously “denied admission, excluded, deported, or otherwise removed from the U.S.” The bill passed the Senate along party lines after 10 minutes of debate and now heads to the House.
Like the Texas law, which has been put on hold by a federal appeals court panel that is considering whether to continue blocking enforcement pending further appeals, Louisiana's bill would expand the authority of state and local law enforcement. In addition, Hodges said it would “start the deportation process.” Currently, enforcement of immigration law regarding illegal entry and deportations has long been the exclusive domain of federal law enforcement.
Under Louisiana’s bill, anyone who violates the proposed law would face up to a year in prison and a $4,000 fine for a first offense, and up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for a second offense. Necessary witnesses or victims of certain crimes — such as murder, rape, human trafficking, kidnapping, involuntary servitude and blackmail — would be the exception.
In addition, the bill would authorize Gov. Landry to make an interstate compact with Texas and other states willing to participate in Texas’ state-led border security efforts. Proponents say the provision will help prevent illegal border crossings by sharing information and "state resources to build surveillance systems and physical barriers to deter illegal activity along the border.”
Opponents of Louisiana's bill say it is an overreach of state authority, would increase racial profiling and could clog court systems.
“It’s going to create a backlog in our courts, it’s going to drain state resources, and it’s not going to actually reduce crime or make Louisiana any safer,” Huey Fischer García, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said during a hearing on the bill last month.
If Louisiana's bill is approved by the House and signed by the governor, who Hodges says supports the measure, it would take effect only if the Supreme Court upholds the Texas law or if the U.S. Constitution is amended to increase local border enforcement authority.
This story has been updated to correct that Louisiana's migrant arrest bill was advanced by the state Senate on Monday, April 8, not Tuesday.
Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
FILE - Members of the National Guard stand as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and fellow governors hold a news conference along the Rio Grande to discuss Operation Lone Star and border concerns, Feb. 4, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas. Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Senate has advanced a bill Monday, April 8, that would empower state and local law enforcement to arrest and jail people in the state who enter the U.S. illegally, similar to embattled legislation in Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry addresses members of the House and Senate on opening day of a legislative special session focusing on crime, Feb. 19, 2024, in the House Chamber at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge, La. Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Senate has advanced a bill Monday, April 8, that would empower state and local law enforcement to arrest and jail people in the state who enter the U.S. illegally, similar to embattled legislation in Texas. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP)
LYPIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside.
Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement chapel at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary while Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they closed in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, 40 miles (60 kilometers) to the east.
“The fighting was right here,” the Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi said. He pointed to the churchyard, where a memorial stone commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed in the battle for Lypivka.
“They were injured and then the Russians came and shot each one, finished them off,” he said.
The two-week Russian occupation left the village shattered and the church itself — a modern replacement for an older structure — damaged while still under construction. It’s one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites recorded by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization.
“It’s solid concrete,” the priest said. “But it was pierced easily” by Russian shells, which blasted holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel scars. At the bottom of the basement staircase, a black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down.
But within weeks, workers were starting to repair the damage and work to finish the solid building topped by red domes that towers over the village, with its scarred and damaged buildings, blooming fruit trees and fields that the Russians left littered with land mines.
For many of those involved — including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftspeople — rebuilding this church plays a part in Ukraine's struggle for culture, identity and its very existence. The building, a striking fusion of the ancient and the modern, reflects a country determined to express its soul even in wartime.
The building's austere exterior masks a blaze of color inside. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels decorating walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist images of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine.
The 77-year-old Kryvolap, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said that he wanted to eschew the severe-looking icons he’d seen in many Orthodox churches.
“It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration,” he said.
There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during World War II. The small wooden church that replaced it was put to more workaday uses in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed.
Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set about rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with funding from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor.
Work stopped when Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Moscow's forces reached the fringes of Kyiv before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated by the start of April.
Since then, fighting has been concentrated in the east and south of Ukraine, though aerial attacks with rockets, missiles and drones are a constant threat across the country.
By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It has been slow going. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war erupted, including builders and craftspeople. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military.
Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold image of Christ raises a hand in blessing
For now, services take place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently conducted a service for a couple of dozen parishioners as the smell of incense wafted through the candlelit room.
He is expecting a large crowd for Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection.
A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.
Kharkivskyi says the size of his congregation has remained stable even though the population of the village has shrunk dramatically since the war began. In tough times, he says, people turn to religion.
“Like people say: ‘Air raid alert — go see God,’” the priest said wryly.
Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, found herself drawn back to the village and its church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then 16 and 18 years old. But within weeks she came back to the village she loves, still besieged by the Russians.
The family hunkered down in their home, cooking on firewood, drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed.
“Not prayer in strict order, like in the book,” she said. “It was from my heart, from my soul, about what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?”
She goes to Lypivka’s church regularly, saying it’s a “place you can shelter mentally, within yourself.”
As Ukraine marks its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few of Kryvolap’s interior panels remain to be installed. He said that the shell holes will be left unrepaired as a reminder to future generations.
“(It’s) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists,” he said, referring to the Russians.
“We are Orthodox, just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane.”
Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this story.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Flowers and a helmet rest at the memorial stone that commemorates the death of six Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, in the yard of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A builder works at the new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under construction in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A builder works at the new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under construction in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Local resident Liudmyla Havryliuk stands next to a memorial stone that commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, in the yard of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down at the entrance of the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A Christian Orthodox woman attends a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Christian Orthodox worshippers leave the chapel basement after attending a service at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
