How did Secure Communities and 287(g) agreements evolve under the Obama administration?
Executive summary
The Obama administration both expanded and later reined in two key programs that tied local policing to federal immigration enforcement: Secure Communities was pushed widely into jurisdictions early in the presidency and then formally discontinued and replaced by a priorities-based system in 2014, while 287(g) was reshaped—some models curtailed and others kept—with new MOAs and supervisory changes that narrowed its scope [1] [2] [3]. Debate about whether those moves were a “gutting” or a recalibration reflects competing political narratives and differing metrics—numbers of expulsions, legal safeguards, and local pushback—advanced by partisan and policy actors [4] [5].
1. The early expansion: Secure Communities rolled out aggressively
Secure Communities, begun under the Bush administration, was accelerated under President Obama and by March 2011 had been expanded to more than 1,210 jurisdictions, making fingerprint-sharing and ICE checks routine for many people booked into local jails and dramatically widening immigration-related encounters with policing [1] [6]. That rollout coincided with record deportation totals in the early Obama years and triggered widespread municipal and gubernatorial resistance in places like New York, Massachusetts and Illinois that sought to withdraw or limit cooperation [1] [2].
2. Administrative fixes: MOAs, the Morton memo, and the shift toward priority enforcement
Problems with how Secure Communities and local agreements operated—confusion over memoranda of agreement (MOAs) and criticism that jurisdictions could not easily opt out—led ICE to conclude MOAs were unnecessary; John Morton’s 2011 memorandum terminated MOAs to reduce confusion and clarify operations [7]. Facing public backlash and legal challenges, the administration later moved in November 2014 to discontinue Secure Communities and substitute the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), explicitly to refocus enforcement on aliens who posed criminal or national-security threats rather than broad, automatic checks [2].
3. 287(g) under Obama: new templates, narrowed models, and supervision
The administration issued a revised 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement and SOP template in 2009 that aimed to constrain and standardize local deputizations, emphasizing limits and priorities and drawing criticism from both immigration-restriction and immigrant-rights camps for different reasons [3]. By 2012 the Obama DHS sought to discontinue the least productive task-force-style 287(g) agreements where Secure Communities was active, effectively shifting the program away from broad task-force deputizations toward more jail-based cooperation and warrant-service frameworks [8] [9].
4. Outcomes and numbers: fewer 287(g) agreements, disputed interpretations of “reform”
Sources record a substantial decline in some aggressive 287(g) activities during the Obama years: watchdog reports and later observers note the task-force model was discontinued and the program’s footprint narrowed, with some metrics showing a large drop in active MOAs and task-force deployments even as jail-based cooperation continued [9] [10]. Opposing narratives remain: critics say the administration “weakened” local enforcement cooperation and made criminal aliens lower priority (as argued by CIS and some conservative outlets), while defenders call the changes a responsible recalibration toward targeted, supervised enforcement [3] [5].
5. Politics, accountability, and hidden agendas behind the policy arc
Policy moves that narrowed automatic local-federal entanglement carried clear political incentives—Obama faced pressure from immigrant communities and Congressional critics over deportation totals—and administrative justifications cited oversight failures and civil-rights concerns documented by DHS and DOJ reviews [10] [7]. Conversely, groups favoring robust interior enforcement frame the changes as politically motivated retreats that reduced tools available to remove dangerous criminals, a framing echoed during later political campaigns [4] [11].
6. What the record supports—and what remains contested
Documentary records show a three-stage dynamic under Obama: aggressive early expansion of Secure Communities, administrative correction and MOA termination in 2011, and a formal replacement with PEP in 2014, while 287(g) was restricted principally by retiring the task-force model and tightening MOAs though jail-based cooperation persisted [1] [7] [2] [9]. Quantitative judgments—whether these steps constituted a “gutting,” a necessary reform, or a politically calculated compromise—depend on which measures one emphasizes (deportation totals, oversight safeguards, local autonomy) and which sources one trusts (ICE/DHS documents, advocacy groups, and partisan think tanks) [4] [5] [11].