The Expansion of Local Law Enforcement Power to Carry Out Trump’s Mass Deportations

President Trump’s second-term agenda has been defined by an aggressive anti-immigrant crusade, as evident through his stated goal of carrying out mass deportations. In the process, his administration has ramped up its immigration enforcement, reduced standards at detention centers, and deployed the military to silence dissent. 

To carry out the mass deportation scheme, the administration has rapidly expanded the use of the 287(g) program, named for a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, through which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) partners with state and local law enforcement agencies to deputize officers to act as immigration enforcement agents. The whirlwind expansion of the program has alarmed immigrant-rights groups, who point to the program leading to widespread racial profiling and the targeting of people with non-violent criminal histories — despite the administration’s xenophobic rhetoric about combating serious crime. Its increased use is a glaring example of Trump’s weaponization of government power against vulnerable groups, including immigrants, in service of his political goals. American Oversight is seeking records that could shed light on the program’s expansion, including the potential for civil rights violations and abuses of power. 

Background

On the first day of his second administration, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rapidly and significantly expand the 287(g) program. The initiative, which was created in 1996, authorizes DHS and ICE to enter agreements or contracts with local law enforcement agencies, and to delegate to them specific immigration enforcement duties. 

There are three types of 287(g) agreements: the jail enforcement model, the warrant service officer model, and the task force model. The jail enforcement model allows deputized law enforcement officers to question already-detained individuals about their immigration status. Under the warrant service officer model, which was created in 2019 and has traditionally required less training, partners can execute administrative immigration warrants on people who are already in custody. ICE has described the task force model, which was discontinued by the Obama administration and only brought back during Trump’s second term, as a “force multiplier”; it allows partner officers to arrest and detain immigrants during routine police enforcement.

The program also allows ICE to use local jails for immigrant detention, which has heightened concerns about treatment and conditions. Immigration detention is already rife with systemic issues of abuse and negligence. In February, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said the administration was working to reduce the number of required federal inspections at immigration detention facilities, and to lower detention standards so that more county sheriffs could detain people on behalf of ICE.

Constitutional sheriffs — subscribers to the fringe belief that sheriffs hold the most authority of any law enforcement or government official in their home counties — have been at the forefront of the program’s recent expansion. Anti-immigrant sentiment is a central part of the movement, with its most prominent group, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association having distributed in December 2024 a press release declaring its “full support for the proposed deportation initiatives outlined by former President Donald Trump and former ICE Director Tom Homan” and urging sheriffs to support Trump’s efforts.

Immigrants’ rights advocates have pointed out that 287(g) agreements lead to racial profiling and widespread distrust of police, and create fear among immigrants and people of color that can exacerbate social withdrawal and isolation. Since the program’s expansion in January 2025, ICE has entered formal contracts with at least 600 local and state law enforcement offices, with several dozen additional applications pending as of late June of the same year. (In December 2024, ICE had entered 135 total 287(g) contracts with local agencies.)

American Oversight’s Investigation

American Oversight has filed records requests with ICE and dozens of county sheriffs offices that have entered 287(g) contracts or that have pending agreements, including several offices headed by adherents to the constitutional sheriffs movement. Among other records, our requests seek the release of communications about the program’s expansion and information about its budget and related costs.

We also requested ICE’s training requirements and materials for new 287(g) program participants, including records that could shed light on potentially reduced requirements. Under previous administrations, most participants were required to pass a test after undergoing training that ICE said taught agents about “immigration law, the use of ICE databases, multi-cultural communication and the avoidance of racial profiling.” During the second Trump administration, some sheriffs joining the program have reported that training has been significantly condensed.

Records American Oversight obtained show that even before Trump returned to the White House, the offices of certain constitutional sheriffs were making arrangements to expand the 287(g) program. Documents from the office of Sheriff Brad Norman, the self-proclaimed constitutional sheriff in Ellis County, Texas, show that in December 2024, the office received an email from a detention and deportation officer at Dallas’ ICE field office who wrote that his “goal is to have everything submitted before the next Administration takes office so we can hit the ground running and will have all the paperwork completed.”

In Walker County, Ga., records show that the office of Sheriff Steve Wilson, another constitutional sheriff, sent ICE a letter in October 2024 indicating its interest in the 287(g) program. In January, an ICE field agent responded: “Some partner agencies do give a pay incentive to their staff assigned the extra work of 287g. I encourage that, if possible.” He also wrote, “If the ICE Atlanta field office follows the pattern they currently do, they will also assign one ICE Deportation Office full-time to the program at your facility to assist your DIOs [designated immigration officers],” and added, “Being transparent, it will take us about 12 months to get your program completely up and running.”

Other records from Frederick County, Md.’s Sheriff Charles Jenkins — a constitutional sheriff with ties to anti-Muslim and anti-immgrant groups — include an email from ICE on how to initiate new 287(g) programs. 

Records from St. Lucie County, Fla., suggest that David Venturella, a former ICE official who left the agency in 2012 to become a private prison company executive, may have come out of retirement in 2025 to work with ICE again, including on its 287(g) programs. In January 2025, former St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson left his role to join the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security and Richard Del Toro became the county’s new sheriff. Del Toro signed 287(g) agreements in February. In an email about the county’s new 287(g) program sent that month, Pearson wrote, “David Venturella will get these to the Director for signatures asap.”

In June 2025, American Oversight sued ICE for failing to respond to our records request in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.

The Weaponization of Local and State Law Enforcement Power

The 287(g) program is voluntary for participants, but the Trump administration and its allies have actively recruited sheriffs and other law enforcement officers. At the same time, right-wing state and local leaders eager to demonstrate their alignment with Trump’s anti-immigration agenda have pushed the program while also looking for ways to assist the administration’s detention capacity shortfalls. In January, the Texas attorney general’s office entered a 287(g) agreement directing the state’s law enforcement agencies to work with ICE, and a state bill advanced in April would require sheriffs to partner with ICE. In February, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directed all of the state’s law enforcement agencies to enter 287(g) contracts, an alarming signal of the politicization of law enforcement for targeting immigrants. 
Like the administration’s other dangerous enforcement actions, including raids at schools, places of worship, and workplaces — the subject of a separate lawsuit by American Oversight — the proliferation of 287(g) program partnerships doesn’t just serve to terrorize immigrants and opponents of Trump’s inhumane immigration policies. It is also a dangerous consolidation of easily abused power, aimed at scoring political points for the president and advancing a far-right and white nationalist vision that is antithetical to our democracy. Follow our litigation as we fight to learn more about the Trump administration’s weaponization of the government and abuses of power, including through the expansion of the 287(g) program.