How Trump could use county sheriffs for mass deportations: Report

President Trump may grant state and local law enforcement agencies, like Sherriff’s departments, the power to carry out very specific immigration enforcement functions. The authority comes from Section 287(g), which was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996.  

The program allows the officers to remove incarcerated criminal noncitizens before they are released back into the community. Everything is done under the direction and oversight of ICE. 

The 287(g) program has two models: 

• The jail enforcement model targets those with criminal or pending criminal charges who have already been arrested by state or local law enforcement agencies. 
• The Warrant Service Officer Program allows ICE to train, certify, and authorize local law enforcement officers to execute administrative warrants on noncitizens in their agency’s jail.

As of May 2024, ICE had jail enforcement model agreements with 60 law enforcement agencies in 16 states and warrant service officer agreements with 75 agencies in 11 states.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the president-elect is also considering a plan to redirect billions of dollars from NGO’s and cities that support newly arrived migrants to law enforcement agencies that turn migrants over to ICE. 

The Journal report states the Trump transition team is aware they will need to significantly increase resources if they are to carry out a mass deportation operation.

Incoming border czar Thomas Homan said he guarantees federal funds will be cut from states and cities that don’t cooperate with deportations. The Trump administration plans to reward those that cooperate. 

Homan said they will prioritize deporting people who are a threat to public safety and national security, including fugitives, those on the terrorist watchlist and individuals who have been convicted of a crime