Partnerships Between ICE and Local Police Surge, Report Finds

The number of state and local officers working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement has doubled in size in the last eight months, according to a new report from the immigration reform advocacy group FWD.us.

The group analyzed the federal ICE program, called 287(g), that deputizes state and local police for 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 collects U.S. immigration enforcement data.

More than 29,000 officers were deputized by ICE between January 2025 and October 2026. That’s far more than the 11,600 deportation officers directly employed by ICE.

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The most common and most aggressive form of these 287(g) partnerships, the Task Force Model, allows police and sheriff’s departments to make immigration arrests. And, in return, as long as these local agencies remain in “active and ongoing participation in 287(g) enforcement activity outlined” in the agreements signed with ICE , they get money to spend on new cars, equipment and other enforcement resources.

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Law enforcement agencies in Florida and Texas, combined, accounted for about half of the more than 47,000 immigration arrests made nationally between January 2025 and August 2026 through 287(g), FWD found.

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The FWD.us report showed that 287(g)-certified officers in Wyoming, New Hampshire and Oklahoma were responsible for huge shares of immigration arrests in each state in recent months.

In Wyoming, deputized officers made 77% of the total immigration arrests in the state in April 2026 and more than 60% every month since November 2025, the report found. Similarly, in New Hampshire, the program was responsible for 60% of immigration arrests there in June 2026.

In June, close to 50% of immigration arrests in Oklahoma were made by state or local police.

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