Partnerships between ICE and local police surge, report finds

The number of state and local officers working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement has doubled in size in the last eight months, according to a new report from the immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us.The group analyzed the federal ICE program, called 287(g), that deputizes state and local police for immigration enforcement.It used the agency's public records and information requested by the Deportation Data Project, which is based at UC Berkeley and UCLA and collects U.S.

immigration enforcement data.More than 29,000 officers were deputized by ICE between January 2025 and October 2026.That's far more than the 11,600 deportation officers directly employed by ICE.Felicity Rose, vice president of research and policy at FWRD, says her organization's analysis highlights just how big a role these partnerships have played in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement work.

The program was created in the 1990s under the Clinton administration but was little used — until President Trump returned to office."These state and local officers are a key lever in the administration's quieter approach to enforcement.They're trading what used to be splashy urban surges, which we saw in Chicago and Minneapolis, for just routine highway stops now under the 287(g) program," Rose told NPR ahead of the report's release.The most common and most aggressive form of these 287(g) partnerships, the Task Force Model, allows police and sheriff's departments to make immigration arrests.

And, in return, as long as these local agencies remain in "active and ongoing participation in 287(g) enforcement activity outlined" in the agreements signed with ICE , they get money to spend on new cars, equipment and other enforcement resources.The Department of Homeland Security has said that 287(g) is a critical tool to cut down on crime and illegal immigration.Law enforcement agencies in Florida and Texas, combined, accounted for about half of the more than 47,000 immigration arrests mad...