Associated Press
Under President Donald Trump, U.S. Immigration and Customs 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.
But Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, recently told sheriffs that he wants to expand it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets, reviving a model that former President Barack Obama discontinued amid concerns about racial profiling. It’s unclear whether that could allow local officers to stop people solely to check their immigration status.
On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Highway Patrol had struck an agreement with ICE to interrogate, arrest and detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and deliver them to federal authorities.
The arrangement will help “fulfill the president’s mission to effectuate the largest deportation program in American history,” DeSantis said.
On his first day back in office, Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to maximize 287(g) agreements for local law officers to investigate, apprehend and detain immigrants. At a recent National Sheriffs’ Association conference, Homan said the administration is looking to lighten detention facility regulations and shorten the training to encourage greater collaboration with federal immigration officials.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2002 was the first to sign a 287(g) agreement with the federal government, running a task force for immigration enforcement. Twenty years later, Florida became the first state to require all local agencies with county jails to join the program or inform the state why they couldn’t.
After a Venezuelan man who was illegally in the U.S. killed University of Georgia student Laken Riley, Georgia passed a law last year requiring local law enforcement agencies to apply for the program.
This year, Republican lawmakers in about a dozen states are seeking to require or incentivize cooperative agreements with ICE.
Already this year, Florida lawmakers have passed legislation that would allot millions of dollars for local immigration enforcement efforts.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
4 comments
PeterH
February 8, 2025 at 12:15 pm
Republicans control the House, Senate and White House! Do you think for a second that they will push through strict immigration legislation to curtail amnesty requests etc????
🤡🤡🤡🤡
Peachy
February 8, 2025 at 12:41 pm
Did the Demos do it when they had control my fake independent friend. 🤡🤡🤡
JD
February 8, 2025 at 1:33 pm
I know! I know!
Democrats didn’t pass comprehensive immigration reform despite controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency due to the Senate filibuster (this is the biggest), competing legislative priorities (we were just coming out of a pandemic), and internal party divisions (this is the one you will focus on).
The biggest reason was that they lacked a filibuster-proof majority, faced Republican opposition, and prioritized other major policies like healthcare and COVID relief, making immigration reform politically unfeasible.
Instead, they relied on executive actions like DACA, which were limited and vulnerable to legal challenges (and now you see the Trumpians reversing it).
So aside from whataboutism, do you have a counter to Peter’s assertion, or is that an agreement?
Silly Wabbit
February 8, 2025 at 2:24 pm
Peachy kwazy.