ICE Expands Immigration Enforcement Powers of Local Police

In an announcement released yesterday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the signing of 18 new 287(g) agreements with law enforcement departments throughout the state of Texas.

According to the announcement, “the 287(g) program allows state or local law enforcement entities to request to enter into a partnership with ICE for delegated immigration enforcement.”

All of the newly announced agreements are “Jail agreements,” which, according to the CATO Institute’s coverage of the announcement, “allow participating officers to check an individual’s status in a detention facility and issue detainers. Using detainers, officers can hold individuals 48 hours longer than they usually would so that ICE can pick them up. The Task Force model allowed officers to carry out immigration enforcement in the field such as questioning and arresting people suspected of violating immigration law.”

In the past, the 287(g) program has raised the ire of DHS, DOJ, and a number of NGOs. CATO notes the comments of Wade Henderson, former president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Henderson testified before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, “the facts show that many local law enforcement agencies repeatedly use 287(g) agreements to stop, frisk, detain, arrest, question, harass, terrorize, and otherwise target individual Latinos and entire Latino communities in a broad way to enforce federal immigration laws, for no reason other than that they appear to be Latino and thus are profiled as potential illegal immigrants.”

CATO notes that the Texas announcement is the “largest expansion of 287(g) in years,” bringing the total number of law enforcement agencies with 287(g) agreements up to 60, across 18 different states.