287(g) is Impacting Communities Across the United States. Here’s What You Need to Know.
View a PDF of the Factsheet here.
An executive order on immigration enforcement signed on Day One of the new administration, “Protecting the American People from Invasion,” vastly emboldens Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including by turning state and local police into arms of ICE through the 287(g) program. The uptick in 287(g) agreements this year is leading to increased capacity for the federal government in carrying out its cruel immigration enforcement priorities and significantly undermines community level trust in state and local law enforcement.
287(g): Policing, Punishment, and Power Instead of Public Safety and Protection
The 287(g) program deputizes local law enforcement officers, with little training, to act as agents of ICE — embedding these federal immigration enforcement agents into jails, police departments, and even university campuses. What began as a legal provision buried in a 1996 immigration bill has become a pillar of a sprawling, unaccountable deportation force.
Today, as states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas expand these agreements with alarming speed, we are witnessing the normalization of fear, racial profiling, and authoritarian enforcement tactics at the local level.
287(g): A Legal Mechanism for State Violence
287(g) is a provision of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that allows ICE to sign agreements with local law enforcement agencies. The officers empowered under 287(g) agreements are not immigration experts; they are local police and sheriff deputies turned enforcers of a federal deportation agenda.
This program uses three different models:
- Jail Enforcement Model (JEM): This model targets people already in custody. Local law enforcement can question people arrested under local or state charges about their immigration status. These officers may also hold non-citizens in jail for up to 48 hours under ICE’s request.
- Warrant Service Officer (WSO): This model deputizes jail staff to serve ICE administrative warrants.
- Task Force Model: This model provides for street-level policing with ICE authority, such as traffic stops. This is the most dangerous and invasive form of the program.
These three models grant specific responsibilities to local law enforcement who are ill-equipped to handle them due to the lack of resources and training. As of June 13, 2025, ICE has signed 109 Jail Enforcement Model agreements with law enforcement agencies in 27 states, 251 Warrant Service Officer agreements in 33 states, and 338 Task Force Model agreements in 30 states. ICE also has pending agreements for additional 287(g) programs; the Task Force Model, leads the charge with 39 pending agreements. These numbers represent a large uptick in 287(g) agreements since December of 2024.
The Obama and Biden administrations significantly scaled back the Task Force Model for its flagrant civil rights abuses and racial profiling. However, this model has surged under the current administration to aid in mass deportations.
287(g): Creating A Human Rights Crisis
The 287(g) program is rooted in racial profiling, thriving on the dangerous myth that certain people “look undocumented.” Under the Task Force Model—its most aggressive form—Latino drivers in states like North Carolina have been systematically pulled over during routine traffic stops, turning broken tail lights and expired tags into gateways to deportation. The Jail Enforcement Models operate on the same premise, namely that minor infractions are justification enough to funnel people into ICE custody. People have been arrested for unpaid tickets or low-level offenses, only to find themselves entangled in a federal deportation dragnet.
The surveillance and criminalization of immigrant communities comes at an unbearable cost, not just to those detained, but to the community as a whole. In 287(g) jurisdictions, trust in law enforcement collapses, as immigrant mothers hesitate to call 911 during emergencies, workers endure exploitation in silence, and survivors of domestic violence stay hidden, fearing that a cry for help might lead to deportation. Meanwhile, local governments are forced to bankroll the costs of 287(g), footing the bill for staff, resources, and jail space, and using taxpayer dollars to deport and detain people.
Where 287(g) Agreements Are Spreading—and Where They Are Being Resisted
While 287(g) agreements are spreading, some states are refusing to succumb to intimidation tactics and continue to prioritize the safety of their residents above all.
- States that have implemented policies that either restrict or prevent their agencies from participating in 287g (California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado): These states have stood firm, passing laws that restrict local cooperation with ICE. They have chosen community safety over cruelty, refusing to be unwilling accomplices in the administration’s deportation agenda. Even so, they are still facing pressure from the administration to adopt policies that deputize their local law enforcement to collude with ICE.
- Expansion States (Florida, Georgia, Texas, Wisconsin, Virginia): These states are ground zero for the 287(g) agenda. In Florida, sheriffs who resist the program are facing legal threats from the governor and state leaders are pushing universities to sign 287(g) agreements, turning campuses into surveillance zones. These are not isolated policies; instead, they are calculated strategies to turn entire states into deportation machines.
- Neutral States: Even in places without formal 287(g) agreements, informal cooperation and quiet detentions persist. The absence of 287(g) agreements does not mean the absence of harm. Surveillance, data sharing, and informal collaboration with ICE still occur in the shadows.
Sheriffs from Iowa to New York to North Carolina have said they will not become enforcers of the administration’s mass deportation machine. They are rejecting the legally dubious orders and intimidation tactics originating from officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi and her colleague Emil Bove, who have threatened funding cuts and even criminal prosecution of sheriffs who refuse to hand over immigrants to ICE. These sheriffs understand what’s at stake: their communities’ safety, constitutional integrity, and public trust.
Many jails across America are already in crisis, plagued by staffing shortages, overcrowding, and inhumane conditions. Yet, now, states and local precincts allied with the administration’s agenda are promising to fill those same jails with even more immigrants, revive contracts with abusive facilities, and roll back what little oversight remains.
Together, local officials, community members, and organizations can dismantle 287(g) and build neighborhoods where safety, dignity, and justice are not conditional on immigration status. To do this:
- Sheriffs must end 287(g) agreements and stop detaining people for ICE.
- Local officials must refuse to collude with ICE and refuse to be deputized to do federal immigration enforcement work.
- Immigration rights and civil rights organizations must continue to advocate against cruel enforcement policies and expose the fear-mongering for what it really is: political theater with real human consequences.
- Community members are encouraged to find out for themselves whether or not their local police department and local sheriff department are participating in 287(g).
- Here is a breakdown of 287(g) and what the program does. Scroll down the page to see a map of all the 287(g) participating jurisdictions in the country; this was updated in June 2025.
- If your local departments do not participate in 287(g), please let them know that you want it to stay that way. Encourage local leaders, fellow community members, and local law enforcement to stay out of 297(g) agreements.
- If your local department(s) are participating with 297(g), tell them that you want them to break the agreement. Any party to the agreement can withdraw at any time. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center has helpful resources, including 287(g) FAQ and a toolkit for local organizers fighting 287(g) agreements in their communities.
- Community members can always increase pressure on elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels by reaching out to these offices and expressing their policy priorities and expectations of their elected leaders.
June 2025