ICE’s Expanding Use of State and Local Police to Boost Arrests

The partnership between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local jurisdictions operates through 287(g) agreements, which allow state and municipal police to enforce federal immigration law. Law scholars label the resulting overlap “crimmigration,” a term coined by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernándezas in 2015. Recent actions illustrate the tension: Key West officials voted to end their 287(g) pact after pressure from advocates, prompting Florida’s attorney general to threaten removal of those officials. In June 2025, Miami’s newly elected Democratic mayor pledged to terminate the city’s 287(g) agreement, yet after seven months in office she has not introduced the proposal, and the City Commission has stalled.

New Republic

The administration’s 2024 campaign platform, articulated by former officials Mike Miller and Steve Homan, promised to enlist local police for mass deportations. The New York Immigration Coalition’s vice-president of advocacy, Meghan Maloney de Zaldivar, notes that rhetoric from Trump and his allies signals to law-enforcement officers that they have presidential backing to act aggressively toward immigrants.

New Republic

Immigrant-rights groups argue that the entanglement of immigration enforcement with routine policing turns ordinary law-enforcement encounters—traffic stops, arraignments—into pathways for detention, creating a “mass deportation regime” that operates with little public notice. Critics contend that the fear generated by 287(g) agreements extends beyond immigrant communities to elected officials, discouraging local resistance to federal immigration priorities.

New Republic

• “The people who work within those forces now feel like they don’t have to restrain themselves, and take it upon themselves to take that initiative,” — Maloney de Zaldivar — Meghan Maloney de Zaldivar, Vice President of Advocacy, New York Immigration Coalition.

New Republic