What role do local police and 287(g) agreements play in referring people to ICE?
Executive summary
Local police can act as gateways to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they enter 287(g) agreements: the law authorizes ICE to delegate specific immigration functions to trained state or local officers, who may identify, process, and—when appropriate—detain people for immigration enforcement during routine policing or in jails [1] [2]. The scale and form of those referrals depend on the model of 287(g) used, the training and supervision ICE provides, and incentives or mandates—from federal reimbursement opportunities to state laws—that push agencies toward partnership [2] [3] [4].
1. How 287(g) legally turns local officers into ICE’s referral agents
Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes DHS and ICE to enter memoranda of agreement with state and local agencies to delegate certain immigration-enforcement authorities to designated local officers who work under ICE supervision after training, enabling those officers to identify and process noncitizens encountered during ordinary policing or in custody [1] [2]. ICE’s public materials describe models such as the Task Force Model — where trained officers can share information directly with ICE during routine duties like traffic enforcement — and jail-based models that screen arrestees for immigration issues after booking [2] [1].
2. The referral pipeline in practice: routine stops, jails, and task forces
In practice, referrals can happen at three main touchpoints: routine police encounters and traffic stops under the Task Force Model, jail booking and screening under jail-enforcement MOAs, and joint task force operations where local officers act alongside ICE supervisors to pursue immigration cases; ICE materials and program descriptions make clear that officers can identify and refer people encountered in these settings to ICE for further action [2] [1] [5]. The specific authority and degree of active identification depend on the MOA signed and ICE oversight — the Task Force Model gives the broadest on-the-street powers whereas jail MOAs focus referrals on people already arrested [2] [5].
3. Scale, incentives and the politics of expansion
Since 2025, DHS and ICE have dramatically expanded 287(g) partnerships, with agency tallies and press releases reporting hundreds to over a thousand MOAs and claims of rapid percentage growth; DHS has also announced reimbursement programs to cover officer salaries and overtime for participating agencies, creating a financial incentive to refer people to ICE [6] [3] [7]. State-level actions also shape referrals: some states and legislatures mandate or pressure local agencies to enter 287(g) agreements, while others pass laws to restrict cooperation with ICE, meaning political priorities at the state and local level materially affect how—and how often—local police send people into ICE’s pipeline [4] [8].
4. Criticisms, risks and documented impacts on referrals
Civil-rights groups, immigration advocates, and legal researchers warn that deputizing local police for immigration enforcement increases racial profiling, reduces community trust, and expands the volume of referrals for nonserious offenses, citing historical analyses and community complaints linking 287(g) to more frequent stops and jail referrals for immigration screening [5] [8] [9]. Independent organizations such as the ACLU and the ILRC document public opposition at local meetings and contend that expanded task-force models revive prior abuses and broaden the circumstances in which local officers refer people to ICE [10] [8].
5. Competing narratives and institutional agendas
ICE and DHS frame 287(g) as a “force multiplier” that helps remove the “worst of the worst” and emphasize training, oversight, and recent program growth as public-safety achievements; advocacy groups and some local officials frame the same program as an instrument that diverts police resources, chills immigrant cooperation, and incentivizes referrals through federal reimbursement and political pressure [6] [7] [9] [10]. Reporting and advocacy sources each carry implicit agendas—DHS promotes expansion and reimbursement [3], while civil-rights organizations prioritize community trust and civil liberties concerns [8] [5]—so the empirical effect of referrals depends on local MOA terms, supervision, available data, and whether incentives (financial or legislative) are present.
6. What reporting shows — and what it doesn’t
The available documents map legal authority, program models, training requirements, and large-scale growth and incentives for 287(g) partnerships, and they record widespread debate and documented harms in some jurisdictions [2] [1] [3] [5] [10]. Public reporting varies on precise referral volumes broken down by model or locality, so while it is clear that 287(g) creates formal channels for local police to refer people to ICE and that expansion and incentives increase those pathways, comprehensive, comparable data on the number and nature of referrals across jurisdictions is not supplied in these sources [6] [9].