President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration is weighing giving local sheriffs more powers to help boot illegal migrants from the US by expanding a federal program to allow them to act as immigration agents.
As part of his mass migrant deportation crackdown, Trump’s team is aiming to expand the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program so deputies can question and detain suspected illegals during their routine duties, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the plan.
Currently, 287(g) — which was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996 under President Bill Clinton — permits ICE to collaborate with state and local law enforcement to identify and deport “incarcerated criminal noncitizens.”
The program, which is voluntary, essentially allows participating local agencies to alert ICE of an illegal migrant in their custody or hold the migrant in jail for immigration authorities — but only after the alleged perps have been arrested on separate criminal charges.
The Trump administration’s reported expansion, however, would revive a task force model, which had previously allowed deputies and officers to make immigration stops and arrests.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, a former acting ICE director, is said to favor the task force model — which was phased out in 2012 — because more frequent arrests can act as a deterrent for illegal migrants, sources close to him told the outlet.
The Post has reached out to Homan for comment.
About 135 agencies already have inked agreements with ICE under 287(g) in 21 different states, according to the ICE website.
Among them is New York’s Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office — the only region in the Empire State on the list.
The Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office has had 358 encounters with “unlawfully present noncitizens” through the program since October 2018, when it signed on, according to The Intercept.
An executive order signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2017 designated New York as a “sanctuary state,” which limits state law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
However, the executive order only applies to state law enforcement officers or employees — meaning that in counties that don’t pass their own sanctuary policies, a sheriff’s office can choose to cooperate with ICE.
In 2018, a New York state appeals court ruled that it is illegal for local law enforcement to hold a person in jail beyond their release date to wait for ICE to take them into custody, but there is nothing stopping police or a sheriff’s office from notifying ICE about an arrest, The Intercept explained.
Former Rensselaer County Sheriff Pat Russo previously explained to the Times Union that the scope of his department’s participation in the program was limited to checking federal databases to see if ICE had a hold on any inmates being held at the jail and then notifying immigration officials about an inmate’s release date.
Authorities in New York City, however, would be barred from that type of participation under current sanctuary policies.
Thaddeus Cleveland, a sheriff in the Texas border town of Terrell County, insisted that many more sheriff’s offices across the US are open to partnering with ICE for 287(g), but are prevented from doing so because of local sanctuary laws.
“It can assist … in protecting and securing their communities and help recover from the last four years. Every community has become a border community,” Cleveland told The Post, referring to the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis.
Cleveland, whose country in west Texas is an active participant in the ICE program, hailed 287(g) as a “terrific tool” that “bolsters the deportation process.”
“If it’s really expanded and utilized, we’ll see more people added to deportations from states and locals,” he added of the possible 287(g) changes.
“It’s better than just releasing them on the streets once they’ve served their time. I mean, we’ve seen the aftermath of that.”
Meanwhile, in a bid to leverage local sheriffs, Trump’s incoming admin is considering financially rewarding those local jurisdictions that back any such plans and hinder those that resist, the Journal reported, citing sources.
Under one plan, billions in federal cash that is doled out to cities and nonprofits at the border to help newly arrived migrants would instead be set aside for local agencies that hand over asylum seekers to the feds, those familiar with the plans said.
The Post reached out to Trump’s team about the plans but didn’t hear back immediately.
