By W. Carsten Andresen
During his first few months in office, President Donald Trump has been establishing a framework for deporting undocumented immigrants en masse. It’s something he has previously vowed will be “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”
Part of that operation includes what’s known as the federal 287(g) program. Established in 1996, it allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose work is normally carried out by federal officials, to train state and local authorities to function as federal immigration officers.
Under 287(g), for example, local police officers can interview people to determine their immigration status. They can also issue immigration detainers to jail people until agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement take custody.
“Illegal immigration has wide-ranging consequences, including a troubling surge of dangerous drugs into our state,” T.K. Waters, sheriff of Jacksonville, Florida, said in a February 2025 statement to explain his office’s participation in 287(g). “We remain committed to partnering with President Trump’s administration and our federal counterparts to secure our borders, protect Floridians, and establish a framework for the rest of the nation to follow.”
Local police authorities across the country – from Jackson County, Texas, to Frederick County, Maryland – are participating in 287(g) for similar reasons.
Since Trump began his second term in January, ICE has increased 287(g) agreements from 135 in 25 states in December 2024 to 628 in 40 states as of May 28, 2025.
As a criminal justice scholar, I believe the surge of 287(g) agreements sets a dangerous precedent for local policing, where forging relationships and building the trust of immigrants is a proven and effective tactic in combating crime. In my view, the expansion of 287(g) will erode that trust and makes entire communities – not just immigrants – less safe.
Past federal-local cooperation
There is a long history of federal authorities collaborating with local police to enforce immigration laws.
During the Great Depression, federal officials blamed Latinos for taking American jobs, and local agencies helped them deport up to 1.8 million people to Mexico. It’s estimated that 60% of those deported were U.S. citizens.
In the early 1930s, local police participated in immigration raids in California and other states. As author Adam Goodman details in his book “The Deportation Machine,” state and local government agencies, including social workers, welfare agencies and police, acted as “de facto immigration agents.”
Trump’s mass deportation plan mirrors President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1954 federal immigration initiative, which resulted in 1.3 million deportations.
As author Natalia Molina notes in her book “How Race is Made in America,” local police often served as “immigration cops” in Eisenhower’s program because the federal government “did not have enough agents to cover such a large territory” as the U.S.
During his two terms, President Barack Obama deported over 5 million people and used the 287(g) program to help him do that, primarily to target jailed or recently arrived undocumented people. Obama’s use of 287(g) peaked at 76 agreements during his first term but dropped to 35 during his second term.
A Justice Department investigation launched in 2008 found the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona engaged in unconstitutional law enforcement actions against Latinos. The Justice Department found that the sheriff’s office engaged in a pattern of “unlawful seizures, including unjustified stops, detentions, and arrests, of Latinos in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Power of local policing
Forty states have adopted 287(g) agreements as of May 2025.
This could have effects outside of the immigration laws.
In the past 45 years, many law enforcement professionals in urban areas have highlighted the importance of forging relationships and building trust with immigrant communities. That’s because the police depend on the participation of all citizens to prevent crime and solve criminal investigations.
But police departments across the U.S. have found that 287(g) partnerships erode that trust.
In 1979, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates created Special Order 40 that prohibited local officers from enforcing immigration laws in response to community complaints alleging discrimination against Latinos. Gates issued the order “to encourage immigrants to cooperate with police and build community trust.”
Other large police departments followed. In places such as Chicago and San Francisco, they shifted focus from helping federal immigration officials to prioritizing community relationships.
William Bratton, who led six police departments, including in Boston, Los Angeles and New York, criticized 287(g) in a 2009 op-ed. He said that deputizing local officers to enforce immigration laws immediately “undermines their core public safety mission.”
Conservative police scholar George Kelling, co-author of the broken windows theory, which presumes that visible signs of disorder can lead to crime, also expressed support for local police agencies prioritizing their community relationships.
In a 1999 study, Kelling highlighted a San Diego police memo announcing its refusal to enforce federal immigration laws. The San Diego Police Department, he wrote, “thought through its values, mission, and functions and elaborated a policy that put public safety and harmony above aggressive attempts to ferret out undocumented aliens.”
During Trump’s first administration, some police chiefs echoed Bratton and Kelling. They warned that employing local officers to enforce immigration measures could spark fear and damage public safety.
Former Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole stated in 2016 that Seattle police officers were prohibited from “inquiring about a person’s immigration status.”
And former Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn announced in 2016 that his department does not enforce immigration law.
He added, “It is our opinion, our strongly held belief that our responsibility is to protect the residents of our city. To protect them, they must trust us, they must be willing to report crimes, they must be willing to be witnesses.”
Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images
Consequences of 287(g)
President Trump has frequently linked immigrants with higher crime rates, calling them murderers and rapists.
But multiple studies have found that undocumented people commit fewer crimes than U.S. citizens.
Although the Trump administration is expanding the use of local police in immigration enforcement, research casts doubt on using mass deportation as a crime reduction strategy.
A 2018 study on 287(g) from the libertarian Cato Institute found no evidence that ICE-led partnerships with local police decreased crime rates.
And a 2014 study on the Secure Communities Program, which calls for local police agencies to share arrestee information with federal immigration officials, found that this program has “no discernible impact” on crime in medium and large municipalities.
The Trump administration’s expansion of 287(g) ignores the shift that some big city police departments have made away from immigration enforcement in favor of community policing. And I believe it threatens to undermine the relationship between local police and the increasingly diverse communities they serve.
W. Carsten Andresen is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at St. Edward’s University.
Jack says
I agree 100%. Trump is making it harder to find the criminal, because of his policies most legal immigrants are afraid to work with the police to weed out the criminal.
Biden has deported more illegals than Trump and he did it legally. Trump’s policies make it more difficult to deport the criminals, so he’s going after people that are here legally to make up with his deportation deficit.
I worked with the Sheriff’s office for a few years. The main rule was to work with the immigrant community to build up a trust so they will work with Law enforcement to solve crimes and weed out the criminals. Without cooperation from those communities crimes are difficult to solve.
Trump has violated that trust and now it’s making it harder to solve crimes. Less illegals have been deported during Trump’s Presidency than under Biden. The deportation numbers this year have now dropped sharply. Political Rederick makes bad policy and it’s impacting the smooth and efficient functioning government. The damage being done is self-inflicted and will drag out by losing trust and will make it harder to find the bad guys.
Laurel says
And I agree 100% with Jack.
Our local police and sheriff deputies should be focused locally, and not trying to fulfill the toddler’s fantasy. That’s just political bullshit. Trump lies. Don’t follow.
I don’t want to live under a “golden dome” that’s what abusers and cultists do: separate people from the outside. Give them only information that serves a very narrow purpose. Our local police should not be participating.
Skibum says
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I could have written this article because from what I have seen and experienced during my long law enforcement career, I agree wholeheartedly with the author’s view and have been voicing the same concerns for a very long time. It is NOT the responsibility of state and local law enforcement to round up those suspected of being in the U.S. illegally!!! In particular, every local police and sheriff’s department’s law enforcement personnel absolutely has to have the cooperation and help from the public in their communities to be effective. We have all seen what happens in places where the citizens turn against the police because of a lack of trust, and the obvious result is less 911 calls reporting crimes, people looking the other way, not wanting to step up and provide critical witness information even in serious crimes, less arrests and convictions, and MORE CRIME. Who wants to live in a place like that?
If the feds want to increase their efforts to enforce federal immigration laws and round up suspected illegals, why is the federal government demanding that ICE officers increase all of their individual workloads but not giving them the resources they need, instead threatening local and state law enforcement agencies to drop their own duties and have police perform federal law enforcement responsibilities simply because of coercion and threats of taking away federal dollars from local authorities?
I know for a fact that most immigrants who come into this country are exceedingly thankful to be here, and are hard-working people just trying to survive and make an honest living like the rest of us, but doing the work that NO Americans are willing to do like toiling in the hot sun out in the agriculture fields picking crops. They are much more likely to be VICTIMS of crime than criminals committing crimes, yet they have all been targeted with the swipe of a very broad brush, putting that thought in people’s minds by the one person at the top of our nation’s government who REALLY is a criminal. The orange-faced buffoon who is spearheading this anti-migrant bullshit came down that golden elevator in drumph tower years ago spouting about Mexican migrants being rapists, murderers, and “very bad people”. Well, I’m here to tell the maga mush brains that it is drumph, NOT migrants, who is the sexual abuser, having been found liable in court of sexually attacking an innocent shopper in a store’s dressing room! It was him who was convicted of all 34 felony crimes in a court of law. Drumph is a “very bad person”!!! If we had the option, HE is the one who should be deported to one of his favorite third world country high security “prisons” to protect the law abiding citizens here in America from his atrocities!
It seems like everything that drumph lashes out about is a mirror image of what HE is about… not others. I cannot wait for the day when this country is rid of the most disgusting, immoral thug to ever soil the cushions of the WH furniture. HE is the lawless one, not migrants, who should be carted away, not to be seen or heard from again.
Mike P says
So on Tuesday, an MS-13 member, child sex offender nabbed amid federal immigration enforcement on Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard. On March 17th, 10 Sex Offenders were arrested in Florida by U.S. Border Patrol Agents in the Miami area as well. These are just a few of many stories of public safety being increased. My grandparents migrated from Poland, LEGALLY, when the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939. They got their citizenship, my grandfather worked on the railroads, then US Steel in Massachusetts, my grandmother in a Worcester factory. They didn’t get federal handouts, live in sanctuary cities, commit crimes. They contributed to this country, paying their taxes, building a family of 8 children. Legalizing immigration offers significant economic, social, and individual benefits that can contribute to a stronger and more prosperous society. Our local law enforcement officers, enforcing immigration laws, removing illegal’s have come here after committing serious crimes, or committing them while here, makes us all much safer.
Alice says
The system is broken and the Trump Administration is the biggest offender. Judges are ruling how the illegal procedures they continue to do.
How about fixing the system correctly and legally?
Many agree they don’t want anyone in our country that isn’t legally permitted. But why is Trump sending those that are here legally to a dangerous prison in other countries?
It doesn’t matter what party you are with, everything should be done correctly and legally no matter what political position you hold in our government and the includes the President of the USA.
Pogo says
@Professor Andresen, and Jack
… are, IMO, correct, and too, on the side of wisdom and angels.
A police state is what it is — not something else; all complaints may be referred to the staff of room 101:
Sign in before entering
https://www.google.com/search?q=room+101
Marek says
I agree with Jack. The job of thee police and the Sheriff is to prevent and combat crime .
Alienating local population is not the way.
William Moya says
Let’s cut through the BS, this is the US stumbling froward to full fascism, and intimidation, if you think this is hyperbole go back to our history books. The fissures to our foundation are beginning to show.
Skibum says
Mike P, when your grandparents immigrated to this country from Poland in 1939 to escape either or both the communist Soviets or the Nazis, the U.S. was welcoming immigrants from all over who were fleeing wars, poverty and oppression. Quite different from today, even for the ones seeking legal entry and asylum so they can flee war torn countries, poverty or oppressive foreign governments. With the exception of those of us who have Native American blood, we all are descendants of immigrants or slaves – we all know that sordid chapter of American history. But it is not comparable to hold up your grandparent’s journey into the U.S. in 1939 and then assert that those fleeing war in today’s world can and should have the same experience and ability that was available to immigrants such as your ancestors, and mine as well, nearly a century ago. If America was as gracious and accepting of immigrants from around the world today as it was just prior to WWII, I seriously doubt we would be facing any of the issues this country is having with undocumented immigrants on our southern border.
We have had quite a few opportunities in recent years to fix what is broken in our current immigration system, including putting stronger protections in place along the border, but each and every time Congress takes a stab at it, politicians who would rather run for re-election on the immigration issue rather than solving it get in the way. The latest example was the bipartisan legislation that was proposed by one of the most conservative members of Congress, along with other leaders from across the aisle who worked hard to craft a bill that would certainly have become law had drumph not yelled and screamed at republican House members to quash it because he did not want a democrat president to get credit for finally, finally passing and signing into law a comprehensive immigration bill that was acceptable to both democrats AND republicans. Now, with drumph in the WH and both a republican House and Senate, he could have on day 1 instructed the republicans to pass the same bill or craft their own that he would sign into law, but no, as usual, when they have the power to fix immigration they do NOTHING so they can continue to yell and scream about the immigration issue, blaming everything on democrats, but doing absolutely nothing because they want the immigration issue to remain a republican talking point for re-election.
Finally, I have to ask you… just how many LEGAL immigrants to you think ICE rounded up and detained on even that one single day just to get 1 suspected MS-13 gang member? News reports for weeks, not day, WEEKS now have reported on hundreds, possibly thousands nationwide, legal immigrants and yes, even American citizens who have been detained and locked up in immigration sweeps by federal, state and local law enforcement. Drumph’s DOJ is advocating for no due process for those rounded up, and he wants those detained to simply be herded onto planes and flown to prisons in other countries, even supporting the head jerking, jaw dropping idea of sending those detainees to be locked up in countries they are not from or have never been to before!!! Drumph has said publicly that he would be fine with sending American citizens who have committed crimes abroad to be locked up in foreign countries! NOBODY should be ok with this! And certainly no American court should allow this unhinged president to be forcing suspected “illegal” immigrants onto planes and flown out of the country without them having the opportunity to prove in an immigration hearing that they were in fact in this country legally. That is the “DUE PROCESS” that the U.S. Constitution requires, and the very process that drumph is trying as hard as he can to ignore. One more very unbelievable public statement that drumph made in response to a reporter’s question is that he “doesn’t know” if he, as President of the United States, has a responsibility to uphold the Constitution! Just dwell on that for a moment and see how that fits in with your opinion of who is the one who is actually doing the ILLEGAL actions. Maybe you will be able to see why, with the multi years long breakdown and problems within our country’s immigration system, so many people choose to just bypass the legal way and opt for the dangerous journey up to and across the border. I’m not arguing in their favor, but desperate people do desperate things when they believe that is their only choice left.
Deborah Coffey says
@ Mike P
Only if you believe the lies. There simply aren’t that many criminal immigrants.
Joseph Barand says
Very disappointed that Rick Staley has bought into the Trump lies and agenda. Staley is constantly looking or monies and Trump is the biggest source. The loss of honesty, integrity doesn’t mean shit to Staley when he can get daily press release and self created publicly, fuck the people who put him in office, he is collecting the bribes, kickbacks, favors. He is too old to run again and is simply stuffing his mattress for retirement.
Sherry says
@ mike p……
For all the Maga indoctrinated cult members who post incessantly about entering our country “Legally”. . . trump’s, (often masked, gestapo) ICE agents are now arresting many innocent people who came to the US under a “LEGAL” program! ICE is lying in wait and arresting them as they exit courthouses where they appeared as they were “LEGALLY” required to do! So much for coming to the US “LEGALLY”!
Just say'n says
I love TDS,it’s simply the best at exposing yourselves to the MAGA crowd,its very helpful in our pricing for the services you need from the unwashed masses.You smile to our face and cus us under your breath and you can be rest assured we know who your are and we talk to each other.You live in a bubble and it’s shrinking,you ignored our concerns long enough and mocked us as a cult,couldn’t help but notice how dems stick together no matter how crazy the ideas your in and Republicans fight among ourselves in the open.So who is really in a cult?America has spoken and they have had enough!