What legal agreements (like 287(g)) or state policies in Texas and Florida affect federal immigration enforcement operations?
Executive summary
Texas and Florida have used a mix of federal-state memorandums and state laws to expand local participation in federal immigration enforcement—most prominently through the federal 287(g) program, which ICE says has produced more than 1,300 memorandums of agreement nationwide, and state-level mandates and operations that push sheriffs and county jails into active partnership with ICE [1] [2]. Texas passed Senate Bill 8 in 2025/2026 to require many sheriff’s offices to seek 287(g) agreements, while Florida leads the nation in the number of participating agencies and has mounted coordinated enforcement efforts with federal authorities [3] [2] [4].
1. What 287(g) legally is and how it operates in practice
Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes ICE to delegate specified immigration enforcement authorities to trained state, local, and tribal officers under ICE supervision via memoranda of agreement—ICE reports 1,317 such MOAs covering 40 states, spanning jail-enforcement, task-force, and warrant-service models [1]. In practice the jail-enforcement model lets trained jail staff screen arrestees for immigration status and initiate civil immigration processes, while task-force models create local-federal teams for broader enforcement activities [1] [5].
2. Texas: mandates, new laws, and the push for mandatory county participation
Texas lawmakers enacted a slate of 2026 laws, including Senate Bill 8, that require many county sheriffs who operate jails to cooperate with ICE by applying for and entering 287(g) agreements—media and legal summaries indicate SB8 went into effect January 1, 2026 and has been described as mandating sheriff participation in large counties [3] [5] [6]. Coverage and legislative texts show multiple bills in the 89th Legislature aimed at tightening municipal and county ties to federal immigration enforcement, and reporting frames the law as an unfunded mandate criticized by Democrats and civil‑liberties groups [7] [8].
3. Florida: saturation, state pressure, and coordinated operations
Florida has been a national leader in 287(g) participation for years, with the state historically pressuring local agencies to sign MOAs and now reportedly having the most agreements—reporting cites Florida leading the nation with large numbers of agreements and the state’s Operation Tidal Wave and other joint efforts as evidence of coordinated activity with federal officials [9] [2] [4]. Analysts and advocates note Florida’s approach pairs legislative pressure with active enforcement campaigns to make local law enforcement a central actor in removals [10] [11].
4. Federal incentives, administration priorities, and the political context
The expansion of 287(g) coincides with federal administrative priorities and new funding streams: commentators and policy groups say the current administration has made deputization agreements a “cornerstone” of enforcement strategy and that large federal bills and budgets have channeled resources to state and local enforcement partnerships [10] [12]. ICE’s own recruitment of jurisdictions and the hundreds of MOAs signed since 2025 reflect federal-level encouragement that interacts with state mandates in places like Texas and Florida [1] [11].
5. Critiques, civil‑liberty concerns, and counterpolicies
Civil‑liberties groups and some state actors argue 287(g) partnerships promote racial profiling, chill community policing, and cause immigrant communities to avoid law enforcement; those concerns underlie lawsuits and counter-legislation in other states that prohibit cooperation or 287(g) agreements—advocates urge localities to resist participation while other states adopt protective statutes [2] [12]. The American Immigration Council and similar organizations frame 287(g) expansion as a threat to “welcoming communities,” highlighting a clear policy clash between enforcement proponents and immigrant‑rights defenders [9] [12].
6. What remains uncertain or outside available reporting
Available reporting documents the legal instruments—federal MOAs, Texas SB8, and Florida’s extensive local participation—and outlines political drivers and operational models, but detailed, up‑to‑date counts of every county’s participation, the fiscal impacts on individual sheriffs’ offices, and granular outcomes (e.g., arrest-to-deportation conversion rates in every jurisdiction) are not fully available in the provided sources and would require jurisdictional records or FOIA disclosures to quantify precisely [1] [3] [2].