Even as the Trump administration dramatically bolsters federal immigration enforcement efforts, it is turning to state and local authorities to pursue its goal of 1 million deportations per year, building out what is likely the widest-ranging immigration enforcement capacity in U.S. history. State and local law enforcement agencies have enlisted at unprecedented speed and in novel ways to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies carrying out arrests. As of this writing, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that more than 142 million U.S. residents (41 percent of the total population) lived in jurisdictions in the 40 states where local officers have been deputized to arrest and detain deportable noncitizens. Some state governments have mandated jurisdictions sign these deputization pacts, known as 287(g) agreements; others have been enticed to partner with the administration by the promise of billions of dollars in federal incentives and threats of withholding funds for declining to do so.

Florida and Texas have been especially keen to cooperate in various ways. Florida in July opened a new state-run immigration detention facility in the Everglades, called Alligator Alcatraz, shortly after having helped arrest 1,120 noncitizens in a single week in April. President Donald Trump subsequently hailed the state as a model partner and said “many states” should follow its lead. Texas meanwhile has spent $11 billion since 2021 on the Operation Lone Star immigration enforcement operation at its border with Mexico.

These and other actions represent a new chapter for state- and municipality-led immigration enforcement, which was almost nonexistent before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. State and local agencies became gradually more involved in the post-9/11 era, partly to address national security concerns, but nothing on the scale of the actions since Trump returned to office in January. Their roles have scaled up significantly, particularly the use of 287(g) agreements, which deputize local officers to perform certain immigration functions. Half of the 866 agreements in existence today are of the task force model, which permit police performing routine duties to arrest noncitizens on the suspicion they are removable. This type of 287(g) agreement had been discontinued since the Obama administration, when it was alleged to lead to racial profiling.

Meanwhile, many jurisdictions maintain “sanctuary” policies that prohibit or limit cooperation on immigration enforcement. Yet the administration and its allies have also succeeded in pushing some to reverse course. Together, these trends may lead to a jumbled enforcement landscape from one jurisdiction to the next. This article analyzes the current and historical role of states and localities in U.S. immigration enforcement and the ways the Trump administration has sought to bolster cooperation.

How States and Cities Became Immigration Enforcers

Congress in 1996, by amending Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, allowed the federal government to sign agreements to deputize states and localities to perform certain immigration enforcement functions. No 287(g) agreements were signed until 2002, when Florida became the first to sign one, seeking direct access to data for its counterterrorism task force. Use of these agreements grew gradually and then sharply from 2006 to 2008, especially in the Southeast.

In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also introduced the Secure Communities program in which state and local authorities sent arrestees’ fingerprints to ICE to check against federal immigration and criminal databases. Retrieving removable noncitizens from state and local jails is much faster, cheaper, and safer for ICE than arresting individuals in their homes or workplaces. Combined with state laws such as Arizona’s SB 1070, which required police to check the immigration status of anyone detained suspected of lacking legal status, these programs helped increase deportations from the U.S. interior. During the Obama administration, they helped fuel the so-called criminal justice-to-deportation pipeline, in which arrests for even low-level offenses such as traffic violations could lead to removal.

The high levels of deportations during this time spurred a backlash against ICE and the Obama administration (with President Barack Obama labeled the “deporter in chief” by some critics), prompting some states and cities to adopt policies restricting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Because the policies vary, it is difficult to determine how many jurisdictions have enacted non-cooperation measures, but they are believed to have contributed to a reduction in removals from the U.S. interior, which have never matched the peak of about 238,000 in fiscal year (FY) 2009. In FY 2024, fewer than 48,000 individuals were removed after being arrested by ICE (see Figure 1). There are no official statistics for how many of these ICE-originated interior removals have been conducted since Trump entered office.

In its first term, the Trump administration ramped up the use of 287(g) agreements to a high of 150 in FY 2020. The Biden administration de-emphasized the practice, but mostly left in place existing agreements. At the end of FY 2024, there were 135 active 287(g) agreements.

Rapid Growth of State and Local Cooperation under Trump 2.0

In its second term, the Trump administration has made 287(g) agreements a cornerstone of its enforcement efforts. Since January, DHS has signed more than 730 new 287(g) agreements, raising the total number of existing agreements to a record 866. (For context, there are more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.) These agreements now appear to be the primary way that local law enforcement agencies assist federal immigration enforcement, although state and local cooperation can be sought through other arrangements as well.

While it is unclear how many deportations have resulted from the use of 287(g) agreements, DHS says state and local law enforcement agencies have assisted with recent high-profile operations. For example, Florida reported that state officers joined those from DHS, ICE, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to arrest 1,120 individuals in a six-day span in April, amounting to the largest such operation in state history and ICE’s most ever arrests in a single state in one week.

These agreements have facilitated operations across the country, likely deputizing thousands of officers. As of this writing, the states with the most 287(g) agreements were Florida (320), Texas (127), Georgia (31), Virginia (29), and South Carolina (28). These authorities complement ICE’s 7,700 officers dedicated to removal operations, though the agency’s manpower is likely to more than double in coming years amid new funding under the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The rapid increase in the number of 287(g) agreements has been driven by fast ICE approval as well as state legislators ordering local jurisdictions to expand cooperation. States including Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire, Texas, Utah, and Virginia have requirements instructing some or all local jurisdictions to either sign 287(g) agreements or cooperate with DHS in other ways.

The Justice Department has also dropped lawsuits initiated during the Biden administration against Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas, which passed laws making it a state crime to enter the state without legal status and allowing state officials to initiate deportation proceedings. (Immigrant advocates have continued the legal challenges, however.) Other states considered or passed similar laws seeking to create state-level immigration crimes, including Arizona, Florida, Kansas, and Louisiana, but lawsuits have challenged their implementation. In a significant development, in July, the Supreme Court kept in place a stay of Florida’s law, preventing the state from using it while litigation proceeds. Separately, Florida launched a pilot initiative to fund the “self-deportation” of some unauthorized immigrants arrested by authorities.

Reviving the 287(g) Task Force Model

There are three types of 287(g) agreements: the jail enforcement model, the warrant service officer model, and the task force model. The Trump administration appears to be promoting the expansive task force model, which allows state and local officers to interview and arrest individuals on immigration grounds during routine police work, such as during traffic stops or neighborhood patrols.

Under the Obama administration, task force-model agreements were discontinued following allegations of civil-rights abuses, including racial targeting by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona under the leadership of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The second Trump administration has fully restored the use of the task force model, and they now make up half of all 287(g) agreements: 434 out of 866 as of July 27, 2025.

The other models operate out of state and local jails, allowing local officials to check and quickly confirm an individual’s immigration status once in custody, using DHS technology and data. Under the jail enforcement model, local officers in correctional facilities are deputized under ICE supervision to interview people about their immigration status. Then ICE can issue a detainer: a request to hold an individual for up to an additional 48 hours. Under the warrant service officer model, dubbed “287(g) lite,” ICE trains and authorizes state and local officers to execute administrative warrants to noncitizens already in custody who are believed to be removable. Notably, many jurisdictions have signed up for two or even all three models, allowing authorities to assist DHS both in jails and in communities.

Additionally, the administration has taken steps that could allow state and local officers to issue removal orders shortly after arresting someone, which would be a major departure from historic practice. The administration has expanded throughout the United States the use of expedited removal—an administrative process for quickly deporting noncitizens without a court hearing, historically used only for recent border crossers. These orders could now potentially be issued by state and local officers through 287(g) agreements, although it is unclear if that has happened. Civil-rights groups have raised concerns that the speed of expedited removal could lead to accidental deportations of U.S. citizens; they argue that delegating that authority to state and local officials increases that risk.

Federal Funds to Increase Cooperation

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocates $170 billion for immigration enforcement, including $45 billion for ICE to expand detention facilities, and is expected to supercharge immigration enforcement. It allocates $30 billion to fund ICE through September 2029, a portion of which may be used for “[e]xpanding, facilitating, and implementing” 287(g) agreements. This could be a major increase for the program; in FY 2022, ICE received about $24 million for the 287(g) program. It is not clear how much of this money will go to states and localities, because the funds are allocated for multiple purposes.

Another section of the law provides $10 billion to retroactively reimburse state and local governments for immigration enforcement expenditures incurred since January 20, 2021, through a new State Border Security Reinforcement Fund. Observers have speculated the fund is largely intended to reimburse Texas for its expansive Operation Lone Star, which Texas claims led to more than 530,000 arrests for immigration violations; the effort has cost the state more than $11 billion since 2021.

Resistance to ICE Cooperation Creates Diverging Enforcement

Still, many local officials have resisted fully cooperating with ICE, and 11 states have enacted some policies to limit partnerships (see Figure 4). Some sheriffs, including in Republican-led states, have raised concerns about the administration’s focus on mass deportations, claiming it will harm community trust in law enforcement. Research has shown that immigrants fear reporting crimes in places with 287(g) agreements and some neighboring jurisdictions.

Some holdouts have also cited the high costs of enforcement cooperation. While the federal government will reimburse some 287(g)-related expenses, including costs for detaining noncitizens, it rarely covers all expenditures. Sometimes costs materialize years later when, for example, courts find local officers held noncitizens wrongfully. In 2020, Los Angeles County paid $14 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of 18,500 noncitizens held on ICE detainers from 2010 to 2014, after which the county stopped the practice.

Other concerns have centered on racial profiling, and studies have repeatedly found that local officials in 287(g) jurisdictions have disproportionately targeted Latinos and Spanish speakers for arrest. In 2022, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended the United States end 287(g) programs because they “indirectly promote racial profiling.”

Moreover, critics claim redirecting resources to cooperate with ICE could detract from other public-safety issues. Citing strained and understaffed functions, some sheriffs have said local agencies should keep their focus on local policing.

A Landscape of Diverging Enforcement

This situation has created a split screen. Large-scale arrests and detentions are easier to execute in jurisdictions that have enthusiastically supported the deportation agenda, including Republican-led areas with 287(g) agreements. Major detention facilities are concentrated in GOP-led states such as Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Florida’s new Alligator Alcatraz facility, for instance, is meant to hold noncitizens arrested through the state’s 287(g) agreements, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said five other Republican-led states have discussed building similar facilities.

Meanwhile, DHS faces more challenges in jurisdictions that limit cooperation with ICE. Lack of local cooperation and a proliferation of know-your-rights campaigns offered by immigrant-rights groups have clearly frustrated the administration’s efforts, especially in big, Democrat-led cities. Some state and local governments have also increased funds for legal representation of immigrants. For instance, New York City’s FY 2026 budget includes $78.4 million for immigrant legal services, Massachusetts’s FY 2026 budget sets aside $5 million for a defense fund, and Los Angeles County has promised to provide cash assistance for immigrants affected by enforcement actions there.

In an added wrinkle, there are tensions between state capitals and local jurisdictions, as some localities have sought to defy state sanctuary rules and others seek to resist state pressure to cooperate with federal agents. In New York State, for example, opponents claim Nassau County’s efforts to sign a 287(g) agreement could violate state law.

Federal Efforts to Undo Sanctuary Policies

To bring jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with ICE in line, the Trump administration has launched a multipronged approach. It has sought to withhold federal transportation and housing funds, and filed legal challenges to non-cooperation policies. Separately, “border czar” Tom Homan has threatened to arrest or prosecute the mayors of Chicago and Denver, as well as California’s governor.

Trump similarly tried to withhold funds from jurisdictions deemed sanctuaries in his first term, but litigation blocked most of those efforts. The administration has yet to succeed on this front in the second term. A federal judge has blocked the withholding of funds from jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with ICE, finding that even a revised executive order did not pass muster. Justice Department lawsuits against Colorado, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and New York remain in preliminary stages. A lawsuit against Illinois was recently dismissed by a federal district court, but the Trump administration may appeal.

The administration also sought to name and shame jurisdictions, but a DHS list published in May was quickly taken offline. Officials in many listed jurisdictions denied they were sanctuaries, and in fact claimed to support Trump’s plans. The National Sheriffs’ Association said releasing the list could “strain the relationship between sheriffs and the White House” and “create a vacuum of trust that may take years to overcome.”

Republicans in Congress have summoned officials from Illinois, Boston, New York City, and other jurisdictions deemed sanctuaries to testify on Capitol Hill, furthering the pressure campaign.

There are signs these measures are working. In anticipation of federal funding freezes, Louisville in July backed off its resistance to cooperation with ICE and said it would begin holding deportable noncitizens who have already been arrested for 48 hours so federal officers could take custody of them. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the move “an example to other cities.”

A Paradigm Shift

The Trump administration’s whole-of-government approach to immigration enforcement would be unprecedented even if it were limited to federal efforts. The rapid recruitment of state and local governments is both an acknowledgment of the logistical challenges in achieving its pledge to deport 1 million people annually and a demonstration of Trump’s unmatched stature among Republicans nationwide.

Yet transforming hundreds of state and local law enforcement agencies into immigration enforcers could alter their traditional roles, potentially diverting funding and attention from other public-safety functions. These agencies also receive limited training on immigration law, making the risk of misconduct—and subsequent legal exposure—more likely.

Moreover, the upcoming massive infusion of funding for ICE and other federal agencies may allow them to offer salaries and bonuses that state and local agencies cannot match. For local agencies already struggling with recruitment challenges, this presents a massive competitive disadvantage, which could compromise their broad, public-safety mission.

Combined, the actions represent a paradigm shift for how immigrant enforcement is conducted in the United States, and by whom. While immigration enforcement was long viewed solely as a federal responsibility, the arrest and detention of removable noncitizens is now increasingly also a matter for state and local officials, who comprise the vast majority of law enforcement officers nationally. The consequences of this shift for the Trump administration’s deportations efforts—and the relationship of local law enforcement with their communities—are yet unknown, but could be profound.

The authors thank Alejandro Urbina-Bernal for research assistance.

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