Local officers working with ICE have doubled since last spring

The number of state and local law enforcement officers working alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement has doubled in the last eight months, according to a new report from the advocacy group FWD.us.

The group analyzed the federal 287(g) program, which deputizes state and local police for immigration enforcement. It used agency public records and data requested by the Deportation Data Project, a research team based at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

More than 29,000 officers were deputized by ICE between January 2025 and October 2026. That figure is far larger than the 11,600 deportation officers directly employed by the federal agency.

Felicity Rose, vice president of research and policy at FWD.us, said the analysis shows the scale of these partnerships in the current administration's enforcement strategy. The program dates to the 1990s but was rarely used until President Trump returned to office.

Rose told NPR that state and local officers are a key lever in the administration's quieter approach to enforcement. She said agencies are trading large urban operations, like those seen in Chicago and Minneapolis, for routine highway stops under the 287(g) framework.

The Task Force Model is the most common form of these partnerships. It allows police and sheriff's departments to make immigration arrests. In return, local agencies receive funding for new vehicles, equipment, and other resources as long as they remain in active participation in the program.

Florida and Texas accounted for about half of the more than 47,000 immigration arrests made nationally between January 2025 and August 2026 through 287(g). Governors in both states mandated that local police sign these agreements.

States not typically associated with aggressive enforcement also recorded sharp increases. In Wyoming, deputized officers made 77% of the state's total immigration arrests in April 2026 and more than 60% every month since November 2025. In New Hampshire, the program accounted for 60% of immigration arrests in June 2026. In Oklahoma, close to 50% of immigration arrests in June were made by state or local police.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol signed all of its troopers into 287(g), granting them the power to stop drivers and potentially make immigration arrests on state highways. Gabriela Ramirez-Perez, an immigration and economic security policy analyst with the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said this has changed daily routines for many residents. She noted that people are avoiding driving to reduce the risk of being stopped.

The Justice Department offered $3 billion in funding to state and local agencies that join the program this summer. The money is intended for staffing and equipment over the coming years. Florida has already provided hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds to its law enforcement agencies in exchange for their participation.

Rose said the promise of funding appears to be a driving force behind the surge in participation. She expects the number of partnerships to continue growing.