Pennsylvania state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler’s bill, which passed the Senate 37-12 on Tuesday, takes a swing at getting around the constitutional prohibition on the federal government compelling state and local authorities to enforce federal laws by simply having the state itself do the compelling.

“Several municipalities in Pennsylvania have, unfortunately, taken steps to oppose federal laws and will no longer honor an immigration detainer,” Reschenthaler wrote in January. “I plan to introduce legislation that will address this problem.”

Unfortunately, his bill can’t seem to get out of its own way. Reschenthaler wants to essentially ban so-called sanctuary cities — a term he acknowledges has no universally-accepted definition to begin with. He also wants to force local and state police agencies to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers or forfeit state grant funding, but allows that they will not “be required to take an action that could result in exposure to potential liability.”

Ask officials in Lehigh County how trying to walk that line turned out for them. In 2014 the county found itself on the losing side of a civil rights lawsuit after it violated the constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen by holding him on an ultimately-specious ICE detainer. The blunder cost the county a $95,000 settlement.

It sounds to us like honoring ICE detainers — which federal judges and even ICE itself have already said are requests, not mandates — amounts to “potential liability.”

Butler County, which has its own policy stating that law enforcement here will not honor ICE detainers, has the right idea. The county is one of 32 across the state that don’t honor such requests, according to a 2015 Temple University Law School study — and for good reason.

First, they’re expensive even if you don’t end up losing a lawsuit. In 2012 Los Angeles County taxpayers spent more than $26 million holding people on ICE detainers. Second, local law enforcement agencies have neither the time nor the expertise to dabble in the complex world of immigration law. If they did, we wouldn’t need a federal agency specifically dedicated to investigating and enforcing federal immigration laws.

But we do, and ICE, with its $6.2 billion budget for 2016 — an increase of nearly $1 billion from the prior year — should be able to execute its charge effectively without state legislators needing to put the screws to local and state law enforcement agencies.

Let’s put this dynamic into further context. ICE, with more than 20,000 employees and 400 offices, is the largest investigative agency in the Department of Homeland Security. It maintains more than 34,000 detention beds and supervises about 87,0000 other individuals each day, according to the department’s 2016 budget report.

Municipal police departments in Pennsylvania, by contrast, have on average 25 full-time officers and five part-time officers on their payroll, according to a 2015 report by the Center For Rural Pennsylvania. But that vastly overstates the size of most local departments, 74 percent of which have 14 or fewer full time officers, according to the report,

The hyperbole and political hysteria over this issue have reached epic proportions. But once you sift through the rhetoric and the politics, the bottom line is clear: states and municipalities shouldn’t be involved in enforcing federal immigration law.

They lack the resources and expertise to effectively evaluate a person’s immigration status — and no, it’s not as simple as asking to see someone’s “papers” or a green card.

Having a rational system of immigration that respects the rule of law and helps protect communities from violent criminals who are here illegally is a worthy goal — and we’re clearly not there yet.

But throwing state and local police into the fray using poorly-conceived mandates and fiscal threats is a dangerous and self-defeating tactic that won’t advance that agenda.