President Donald Trump is pushing to get more local governments involved in deportation efforts. And while some so-called “sanctuary cities” are resisting, enrollment in a program to deputize local police for deportation efforts has shot up since the start of Trump’s term.
Florida is leading the charge. The state legislature passed a bill in 2022 that requires certain police departments to join into the agreements, but the Biden administration didn’t support the program, so no new agencies were added. Now that Trump has taken office, the effects are already playing out: A large-scale raid over the past week resulted in more than a thousand arrests in the state.
While many Republicans applauded the move, some lawmakers are skeptical that pulling police into deportation efforts is a good idea.
“Our officers are busy enough,” said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican who previously served as mayor of Miami-Dade County. “That’s up to each individual agency to determine for themselves what they feel is best. We felt it was best not to serve as immigration officers.”
Gimenez stopped short of criticizing the new requirements or local officials who decide to take part in the program, but he also said he didn’t feel local officers were there “to actually do ICE’s work.”
Now the county and others in Florida might not have much of a choice, in spite of fears of high costs, limited resources and legal liability. The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office joined a 278(g) agreement in February and police in Coral Gables became the first city in the county to join in March. And if Trump gets his way, police nationwide could be pulled into efforts to find and deport unauthorized immigrants.
“The whole point of the 287(g) program for them is to scale up, massively, exponentially, scale up,” said Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union’s equality division. “They want a hand to reach into every community, and they know they can’t do that on their own, so they want to use law enforcement as their tentacle into every town and city in America.”
The 287(g) program predates Trump, but he has pushed for its expansion. There are different versions of the program that local police forces can take part in: the jail enforcement model, the warrant service officer program and the task force model.
The jail enforcement model allows local jails to officially identify if a person is unauthorized and process them. The warrant program allows local officials to serve immigration warrants when one has been issued for a person in their custody.
The most controversial version of the program is the task force model, which allows local officers to enforce immigration laws as part of their regular police work, under Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s oversight. That model was discontinued under President Barack Obama because of concern it led to racial profiling following a slew of lawsuits. It was reinstated during Trump’s first term, and the administration is now dramatically expanding its use of the program.
There are currently 241 agencies participating in the task force model, according to ICE. Over 100 more have applied to join.
Since Trump took office, more than 300 agencies have joined a 287(g) program in some capacity, making up the vast majority of the nearly 460 with active agreements. The Biden administration didn’t issue any new 278(g) agreements, according to ICE data, and the rest of the offices with active agreements were put in place during Trump’s first term.
“I’ve insisted that Florida be the tip of the spear when it comes to state support of federal immigration enforcement,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement after the ICE raids. “Florida is proud to work closely with the Trump administration and help deliver on the 2024 mandate from America that our borders be secured and our immigration laws be followed.”
More than 200 of the active 278(g) agreements are with Florida agencies.
Republican supporters of cooperation between police departments and ICE say it makes sense for them to work together.
“Anything that facilitates the coordination with state, local, federal law enforcement, I think, is a good thing,” Sen. Thom Tillis said. “They want to talk about resources, let’s talk about resources, but the fact of the matter is, oftentimes, that’s just an excuse for them not wanting to cooperate with federal law enforcement, and I don’t buy that.”
Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart dismissed concerns about racial profiling, calling it a “red herring,” since “the Supreme Court has been very clear” that profiling is illegal.
“I don’t care if you got here in the Mayflower or you got here yesterday,” Díaz-Balart said. “One of the things that makes our country special, and one of the reasons that makes it so great, is the rule of law and enforcing the law.”
Democrats and organizations like the ACLU have fought the idea of implementing agreements between police departments and ICE on a large-scale.
In Arizona, the Democratic governor vetoed legislation that would have increased enrollment in the program. Years ago, the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio became the focus of a lawsuit regarding racial discrimination as part of the 287(g) program, and a Department of Justice investigation found a pattern of civil rights abuses in his department.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat who used to serve as vice mayor of Phoenix, told NOTUS the program is concerning for a lot of reasons, including the administration’s current record.
“So much of what the president is doing when it comes to ICE and mass deportations is inhumane, and as we have seen, not abiding by due process and going after, in many cases, American citizens or folks with green cards,” Ansari said. “I would never support local law enforcement involvement in that.”
Implementation of the 287(g) program has become a political fight in Florida, where the state attorney general has threatened some localities over their immigration laws.
The city of South Miami filed an exploratory motion in court to have a judge evaluate what it would be required to do in response to the Florida law.
Javier Fernández, the mayor of South Miami, said that participating in 287(g) programs opens the city up to lawsuits if a person is wrongfully detained or feels they were discriminated against — which has happened in the past — and takes limited city resources away from constituents.
“That’s the conversation we would like to have as a board, without feeling like we’re all in jeopardy of losing our job,” he told NOTUS. “Not because we don’t believe that in some places there’s a problem that needs to be addressed, but because it doesn’t make financial and business sense for our local community.”
He said the governor and others have put a lot of pressure on local officials “to get them to take a position consistent with the political agenda,” which he said is “being seen as being the tip of the spear on immigration enforcement, being the leading state on this issue, where it’d be a wonderful talking point for the governor and others to say that every jurisdiction has basically signed on to assist in this mission.”
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.