BEL AIR, Md. — As President Donald Trump’s incoming administration solidifies its plan for mass deportations, local law enforcement agencies are preparing to ramp up a controversial program that allows them to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The 287(g) program gives state and local law enforcement the power to help enforce federal immigration law and will likely be one of the ways the new administration boosts its manpower as it launches what it calls the largest deportation effort in the mentions American history. But it could also be a flashpoint for a legal showdown that is brewing as Inauguration Day approaches.
Tom Homan, who will serve as Trump’s “border czar,” visited Texas on Tuesday to tout the incoming administration’s plans for mass deportations.
“We’re not waiting until January,” Homan said. “We are going to make a plan and secure this nation.”
Homan, the former acting ICE director during Trump’s first term, has pledged to “take the handcuffs off ICE.”
The 287(g) program was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996 under then-President Bill Clinton. It authorizes ICE to delegate the authority to perform certain functions of an immigration officer to state and local law enforcement. Once a suspect is arrested for a crime, a trained corrections officer can access an ICE database to view more information about his immigration status and can then detain the person for up to 48 hours if ICE chooses to pick him up for deportation.
Proponents of the program argue that it does not allow local officers to pick up undocumented immigrants on the street, and that any enforcement takes place in a jail or agency detention center once a suspect is arrested on other charges. Law enforcement agencies in 21 states were participating in the program as of May 2024, according to ICE.
Harford County, Maryland, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler is a supporter of the program and says he believes local law enforcement should work with ICE to help enforce immigration laws. He also pushed back against criticism that this would lead to undocumented immigrants being unfairly targeted.
“This doesn’t stop people on the street – saying ‘show me your papers,’” Gahler said. “When they are brought in – they are arrested for something they committed, an act they committed against the citizens of our community. And at that point they are held responsible for their illegal stay in the country.”
Gahler is no stranger to being at the center of the country’s immigration debate. He has made several trips to the southern border — and worked on a high-profile murder case in his county that reportedly involved an undocumented immigrant.
Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was reported missing on August 5, 2023, and her body was found outside a popular running track the next day. Victor Martinez Hernandez, a native of El Salvador, was arrested after a 10-month nationwide manhunt. He was extradited to Maryland, where he was charged with first-degree murder and rape.
The victim’s mother, Patty Morin, remembers when she first heard the suspect was undocumented.
“I was actually very angry,” she said in an interview with NBC News. ‘I thought we had laws for this kind of thing. … But as more and more information became available, I realized that somehow something had gone wrong somewhere.”
Another proponent of the 287(g) program is Samuel Page, the sheriff of Rockingham County, North Carolina. It’s a much more rural area than Mecklenburg County, where controversy over the program erupted in 2018 when a new sheriff cut ties with it. Page said his county signed up for the program in 2020 and had a dozen corrections officers go through the training. He said there have been fewer requests for ICE detainees during President Joe Biden’s administration.
“When President Biden came in, he ended a lot of those programs that were good at protecting the American people,” Page said. “We have to draw a line and say that the rule of law will matter in America.”
The 287(g) program has long been controversial. Democrats have moved to cancel agreements in several parts of the country. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly opposes the program, saying it amounts to racial profiling while sowing fear in immigrant communities. The Maryland chapter of the ACLU has said local police officers are “totally unprepared” to act as immigration agents.
“This is hurting these families,” said Todd Shulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigrant advocacy group. “This leads to poorer public safety outcomes. It erodes trust in communities and damages the economy.”
Even within ICE, there is debate about “whether the juice is worth it,” according to Jason Houser, a former ICE chief of staff. It could be effective for large cities, he said, where having trained corrections officers assist with immigration enforcement in jails could free other ICE agents to search the streets for immigrants with more serious criminal records. But in sparsely populated areas, the time and effort to train officers may be considered inefficient.
Other critics have also said the 287(g) program serves merely as a political communications tool for conservative sheriffs.
Trump’s campaign platform promised to require local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. But a growing number of Democrats are vowing to defy that. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance banning the use of municipal resources in immigration enforcement.
Elected officials in Massachusetts are already clashing with the Trump team over immigration. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said he would be willing to go to jail to stop the president-elect’s efforts, which he said were illegal or wrong.
It all sets the stage for a post-inauguration clash.
“Local and state officials on the front lines of the Harris-Biden border invasion have been suffering for four years and are eager to see President Trump return to the Oval Office,” said Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for Trump’s transition team. “On day one, President Trump will use all his might to secure the border, protect their communities and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history.”
As for the 287(g) program, corrections officials in Harford County, Maryland, are preparing for changes next year with the incoming Trump administration.
“I think we’re going to be very busy,” said Sgt. Christopher Crespo. The program “has been very effective. … The last thing you need to do is have someone commit murder on the street and find out he or she was here illegally.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
