Erin Hooley / AP
By Aarón Torres
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
The Trump administration has pushed local and state law enforcement agencies to assist ICE in finding undocumented migrants who might be eligible for deportation.
AUSTIN — Partnerships between local and state law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have increased dramatically in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The program, known as 287(g), gives certain law enforcement officers the authority to question an individual’s immigration status — and, in some cases, arrest someone if the officer believes they don’t have the proper legal authority to be in the country.
The program has expanded to law enforcement agencies in North Texas and it comes amid separate but parallel efforts by federal and state officials to arrest undocumented migrants.
The Trump administration wants more agencies to have partnerships with ICE so there are more officers that can arrest migrants.
At the state level, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 into law, which requires every Texas sheriff’s office with a jail to sign a 287(g) agreement with the federal government. Sheriff’s offices must sign into the agreement by Dec. 1, 2026, under the bill.
Five law enforcement agencies in North Texas have joined the program. Statewide, at least 169 agencies have signed such agreements.
Here is a list of North Texas agencies who have 287(g) agreements.
Denton County sheriff’s office
The Denton County sheriff’s office entered into the agreement with ICE on July 29.
Denton County joined the jail enforcement model, allowing selected officers to investigate, interview and detain individuals who are at the jail after being charged with a crime.
Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree spoke in front Denton County Commissioner’s Court on Feb. 11 as commissioners considered whether they should approve an agreement.
Murphree said he attempted to join the 287(g) program a few years ago. However, after President Joe Biden was elected in 2020, his administration stopped approving agencies from partnering with the federal government.
Shortly after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election, Murphree said he was approached to ask if the sheriff’s office would like to join the program. Without the agreement, Murphree said, a sheriff’s deputy would have to call an ICE employee if someone who is arrested for a local crime is also an undocumented immigrant.
“My folks will be able to put that detainer on them because they’ll have access to them immediately when they come in because they’ll have access to all those records,” Murphree told commissioners.
Ellis County sheriff’s office
The sheriff’s office joined the jail enforcement model on April 16.
While a candidate for sheriff in 2020, Brad Norman told a local media outlet he would sign a 287(g) agreement in order to help find undocumented migrants.
“I do not support illegal immigration,” Norman told The Waxahachie Sun. “If you came into this country illegally and you have broken the law, you should be removed.”
Norman acknowledged that enforcing federal immigration laws was the primary responsibility of the federal government, he believed the Sheriff’s Office could “be part of the regional solution to a National problem without undue burden to the taxpayers” by checking an individual’s immigration status when they are booked into the jail.
Norman did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment.
Keller Police Department
One of the few police departments in Texas to have a 287(g) agreement, Keller police joined the program following unanimous approval from the City Council in August.
Keller Mayor Armin Mizani, who is running for the Texas House, wrote in a July 17 letter that public safety in Keller was not “up for negotiation.”
The City Council approved the jail enforcement agreement on Aug. 5. Multiple residents at the meeting spoke in opposition to the agreement. The program is only enforced at the Keller Regional Detention Center, a holding facility for Keller and other surrounding cities.
After the City Council approved the program, the Police Department released a statement saying its employees were committed to “enforcing the rule of law” and they would need to make minor adjustments.
“Opting into this program will mean minor adjustments to the responsibilities of our detention officers, but our department’s priorities and philosophies will remain unchanged,” the statement said.
Rockwall County sheriff’s office
Rockwall County sheriff’s office first joined the 287(g) program in June 2020 — toward the end of Trump’s first term. They agreed to implement the jail enforcement model.
Once Trump took office for his second term, the sheriff’s office joined the warrant service officer model and task enforcement model.
The warrant officer model is also only enforced at jails and limits local officers to serving immigration warrants to prisoners. Officers cannot investigate an individual’s immigration status.
The third model the sheriff’s office joined was the task force model. That model was ended in 2012 by the Obama administration. A 2011 Justice Department investigation into the Maricopa County sheriff’s office, in Arizona, found that the department had engaged in “unconstitutional policing” by unfairly targeting Latinos.
The task force model authorizes assigned patrol officers to question and arrest individuals suspected of violating immigration laws. ICE is responsible for training the officers.
Reached for comment, Rockwall County Sheriff Terry Garrett said in an email that all three models “provide tools useful at various levels of an investigation.”
Tarrant County sheriff’s office
Tarrant County also joined the program during the first Trump administration.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn was among the sheriffs who testified in front of the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee earlier this year when lawmakers were considering SB 8.
“The jail model does make our communities safer,” Waybourn said. “It does get another set of eyes on things to make sure people don’t slip through the cracks and that it is targeting criminals. It has worked out very well for us.”
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
