Federal agents walk near the scene where a man was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during an operation in the Bronx borough of New York on October 8, 2026.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
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Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
The number of state and local agents working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement has doubled in the past eight months, according to a new report from immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us.
The group analyzed the federal ICE program, called 287(g), which tasks state and local law enforcement with immigration enforcement. It used the agency’s public records and information requested by the Deportation Data Project, which is based at UC Berkeley and UCLA and which collects data on U.S. immigration enforcement.
More than 29,000 agents were deputized by ICE between January 2025 and October 2026. This is far more than the 11,600 deportation agents directly employed by ICE.
Felicity Rose, vice president for research and policy at FWRD, says her organization’s analysis highlights the important role these partnerships have played in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement work. The program was created in the 1990s during the Clinton administration, but saw little use – until President Trump returned to office.
“These state and local officers are a key lever in the administration’s quieter approach to enforcement. They are trading what were once dramatic urban surges, like we saw in Chicago and Minneapolis, for simple routine traffic stops under the 287(g) program,” Rose told NPR before the report’s release.
The most common and aggressive form of these 287(g) partnerships, the task force model, allows police and sheriff’s departments to make immigration-related arrests. And, in return, as long as these local agencies continue to “actively and continually participate in the Section 287(g) enforcement activities described” in the agreements signed with ICE, they receive money to spend on new cars, equipment, and other enforcement resources.
The Department of Homeland Security has stated that 287(g) is a critical tool for reducing crime and illegal immigration.
A more granular look
Law enforcement agencies in Florida and Texas, combined, accounted for about half of the more than 47,000 immigration-related arrests made nationwide between January 2025 and August 2026 via 287(g), FWRD found.
This is not such a surprise: the governors of these two states have mandated local police to sign these agreements. And aggressive enforcement by state and local police in Florida and Texas has made headlines.
Some states, generally not known for aggressive enforcement, have also seen an increase in immigration-related arrests made by deputy agents.
The FWD.us report showed that certified 287(g) agents in Wyoming, New Hampshire and Oklahoma were responsible for a considerable share of immigration arrests in each state in recent months.
In Wyoming, deputies made 77% of the state’s total immigration arrests in April 2026 and more than 60% each month since November 2025, according to the report. Similarly, in New Hampshire, the program was responsible for 60% of immigration-related arrests in June 2026.
In June, nearly 50% of immigration-related arrests in Oklahoma were made by state or local police.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has signed all of its troopers under 287(g), giving its officers the authority to stop a driver and potentially make an immigration arrest on state highways.
That has had a chilling effect on immigrant communities living in the state, according to Gabriela Ramirez-Perez, an immigration and economic security policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, a think tank that analyzes state policy.
“Even though Oklahoma doesn’t make the headlines, it’s definitely a hot spot for immigration enforcement,” Ramirez-Perez said. “We can say that it certainly creates a lot of fear in immigrant communities. People are changing their daily routine to avoid getting on the highway, to avoid driving as much as possible.”
Financial incentives
The Justice Department earlier this summer offered $3 billion in funding to state and local agencies that join the program. The money can be used to fund staff and new equipment in future years.
Florida has already given hundreds of millions in additional money to law enforcement agencies across the state in exchange for their participation in the program.
FWRD’s Rose says the promise of money appears to be a driving force behind the increase in 287(g) participation, and believes it will lead to more partnerships in the future.
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