As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents continue to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, they are now working with local law enforcement to increase arrests of undocumented immigrants.
With the addition of Section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), ICE has been able to delegate specific immigration officer duties to state and local law enforcement officers, granting them the authority to perform specified functions under the agency’s direction and supervision.
Section 287(g) was added in response to the Trump administration’s deportation obstacles. To keep his promise of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration would need to deport over 2,700 people per day to reach 1 million in a year. However, according to ICE data posted on X, the highest single-day total since Trump took office was only 1,100.
With only about 6,000 deportation agents nationwide, ICE would need either more funding from Congress or greater cooperation from local police if they wanted to increase deportations. According to the Texas Observer, some agencies in Texas have already begun cooperating.
The Office of the Attorney General, the Smith County Sheriff’s Office, and the Goliad County Sheriff’s Office have all signed agreements with ICE that establish what are known as 287(g) “Task Force Model” agreements.
The agreements between the federal agency and local law enforcement allow local officers who have received federal training to “perform certain functions of an immigration officer,” such as interrogating and arresting anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally, executing warrants for immigration violations, and preparing immigration charging documents.
As stated on the agency’s website, as of March 3, ICE had signed 85 agreements with agencies in nine states, including Florida, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nevada.
Despite sounding like a novel strategy employed by the Trump administration, the 287(g) program is nothing new. The federal government first entered into 287(g) agreements in the early 2000s, when immigration enforcement was expanded following 9/11.
During Barack Obama’s first term, the agreements increased cooperation between local and federal agencies until 2012, when lawsuits and federal investigations into racial profiling and national controversies brought an end to the task force model.
In 2010, two DHS inspector general reports indicated that the majority of immigrants encountered or arrested under 287(g) programs had committed minor crimes or traffic infractions.
“This is the Trump administration desperate to meet the goals that it is set to carry out its mass deportation agenda,” Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told the Texas Observer. “This is the administration trying to ramp up agreements with local law enforcement agencies to be a force multiplier for mass deportation,” according to Gupta.
