The Trump administration doesn't have the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to meet its deportation goals. But it's placed a huge bet that thousands of local cops can help.
Why it matters: ICE has signed 1,100+ agreements this year for local law enforcement to cooperate on immigration arrests and detentions. The agency is dangling financial incentives from President Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
The big picture: Almost 650 counties across the country are now covered by some form of the 287(g) agreement, a formal partnership between ICE and non-federal law enforcement, including sheriff's offices and state police, according to the latest data.
- The surge in agreements is fueled by red states and new state laws mandating cooperation.
- The Homeland Security Department recently announced that these local partners will also start aiding with vetting sponsors of migrant children with whom the Biden administration lost contact.
Zoom in: As of October, ICE is offering to reimburse for "each eligible trained 287(g) officer" their full salary, benefits and 25% of overtime pay.
- There's also a merit-based bonus to the agencies based on "successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance." The highest tier pays out $1,000.
Between the lines: There are three types of 287(g) agreements, named after a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as Axios wrote in June.
- For agencies to identify and process immigrants subject to removal from the country following arrests.
- For ICE to train and authorize law enforcement to serve and execute immigration warrants in jails.
- For local agencies to enforce immigration laws in the community. It was phased out by the Obama administration and renewed by Trump.
Zoom out: ICE has been struggling to meet its hiring goals — aiming for 10,000 new agents — as new recruits fail the fitness assessments and immigration law tests.
- The partnerships with already-trained local law enforcement have quickly brought more staff onto the immigration mission.
- "ICE is not only supercharging our hiring, we are also multiplying partnerships with state and local law enforcement to remove the worst of the worst including murderers, gang members, rapists, terrorists, and pedophiles from our country," ICE's deputy director Madison Sheehan said in a statement.
The intrigue: Taxpayers in Maricopa County, Arizona are still footing the bill from a 2013 verdict that found Sheriff Joe Arpaio was racially profiling Latinos under a 287(g) agreement.
- Community organizers have, in isolated cases, successfully pushed back against these agreements, including the ouster of a Bucks County sheriff over the issue in an election this November.
"Really the local cost is a huge issue," said Christine Sauve, of Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, who helped organize a successful pullback of two agreements in Michigan.
- When residents first heard about the agreements, "there was a real fear that their local police officers would become agents of a lawless immigration enforcement system," she added.
The bottom line: Florida has signed the most agreements at 337, as of Nov. 24, followed by Texas's 231.
- Both states signed laws this year to require broad participation.
- Some of the largest county sheriff's departments in those states and both highway patrols are now deputized to aid ICE, supercharging efforts in two of the states that already have some of highest levels of enforcement, according to an Axios review.
