For years, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office in suburban Indianapolis has wanted to partner with federal immigration꧋ authorities to identify and detain immigrants who are in the US illegally and facing charges.
President Joe Biden's administration never returned its calls, the sheriff's office said. But as President Donald Trump🐷 cracks down on illegal immigration, Hamilton County deputies soon could become the first in Indiana empowered to carry out federal immigration duties and one of many nationally that Trump's administration hopes to enlist.
🦩"We definitely are joining,” Chief Deputy John Lowes told The Associated Press. “We want to collaborate with ICE to make sure we keep our community safe.”
♑Under Trump, US Customs and Immigration Enforcement is reviving and expanding a decades-old program that trains local law officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation. The 287(g) program — named for a section of the 1996 law that created it — currently applies only to those already jailed or imprisoned on charges.
ไTrump's border czar, Tom Homan, recently told sheriffs that he wants to expand local task forces to carry out street arrests, reviving a model that was discontinued under former President Barack Obama due to concerns about racial profiling. It's uncertain whether this expansion would allow local officers to stop individuals solely to check their immigration status.
🌠On Friday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Highway Patrol had reached an agreement with ICE to question, arrest, and detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally, then hand them over to federal authorities. DeSantis stated the arrangement would help "fulfill the president's mission to effectuate the largest deportation program in American history."
🦩Immigrant advocacy groups are expressing concerns about these new agreements that involve local law enforcement in immigration enforcement. Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, highlighted the history of racial profiling and the risk of unfairly targeting U.S. citizens or lawful residents. She also warned that such programs could deter communities from reporting crimes to local law enforcement.
▨In the early 2000s, the 287(g) program allowed local officers to enforce immigration laws in their communities, not just in jails, but the program faced significant issues, especially in Arizona. In 2011, a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice found that deputies in Maricopa County, Arizona, engaged in racial profiling and unlawful arrests of Latinos. The Department of Homeland Security ended its agreement with the county as a result.
🏅The program later became associated with far-right, anti-immigrant sheriffs, who used it as a means to target individuals based on ethnicity for deportation, according to Lena Graber, senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
🐠Recently, ICE has offered two types of 287(g) agreements: one that requires four weeks of training, allowing local officers to question suspected noncitizens in jail and detain them for ICE; and another that requires only eight hours of training, allowing officers to serve federal immigration warrants. By December, ICE had 135 agreements with law enforcement agencies in 21 states, with 35 additional requests pending. Two-thirds of these agreements were in Florida, Texas, and North Carolina, but no new agreements were signed during President Biden's tenure.
♏On his first day back in office, Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to maximize 287(g) agreements, allowing local officers to investigate, apprehend, and detain immigrants. At a National Sheriffs' Association conference, Homan suggested relaxing detention facility regulations and shortening training to encourage more collaboration between local and federal officials. Kieran Donahue, president of the National Sheriffs' Association, welcomed the idea but noted that his department in Canyon County, Idaho, would not participate due to a lack of resources.
🦂Florida was the first state to sign a 287(g) agreement with the federal government in 2002. Twenty years later, Florida became the first state to require all local law enforcement agencies with county jails to join the program or provide an explanation for not doing so.
ꦬIn Georgia, following a tragic incident in which a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally killed a University of Georgia student, the state passed a law last year requiring local agencies to apply for the program. This year, Republican lawmakers in several states are pushing to require or incentivize agreements with ICE. Texas state Rep. David Spiller, who sponsored a law allowing any law enforcement officer to arrest migrants suspected of entering the country illegally, emphasized the importance of local cooperation to remove public safety threats.
꧃Spiller argued that without local law enforcement assistance, it would be impossible to carry out the administration's deportation goals within the next year and a half.
