AUSTIN — Aiming to support President Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations, Republicans in the Texas Senate want to enlist local law officers as federal immigration agents.
Senate Bill 8 by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, would require large sheriff’s departments in Texas to sign cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency known as ICE that arrests and removes undocumented migrants.
The agreements, known as 287(g) contracts, allow local law enforcement officers to inquire about an individual’s immigration status — authority typically reserved for federal agents.
Entering into 287(g) agreements is currently voluntary, and 31 county sheriff’s departments in Texas are participants, including Tarrant and Rockwall counties in North Texas. The Nixon Police Department east of San Antonio and the Texas attorney general’s office also have agreements with ICE.
Most of those agreements focus on citizenship investigations in county-run jails to identify and continue detaining those in the country without authorization.
The Trump administration recently expanded the program to reach beyond jails by allowing specially trained patrol officers to question and arrest individuals suspected of violating immigration laws.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate and chaired Trump’s three presidential campaigns in Texas, designated SB 8 as a priority.
Schwertner said requiring the agreements would help sheriff’s departments develop a working relationship with the federal government and increase public safety in Texas.
“By naming Senate Bill 8 a priority bill, we’re taking a critical step toward arming our local law enforcement officers with the tools they need to identify, detain, and assist in the deportation of illegal aliens,” Schwertner said in a statement.
Democrats and civil rights advocates fear the mandate would lead to discrimination of Hispanic and Latino residents targeted for questioning.
“Local law enforcement does not have the proper training to do this, and even if they are given some training under 287(g) programs, I don’t think that’s going to be enough,” said Danny Woodward, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project.
Schwertner’s bill would require sheriffs in the 43 counties with 100,000 or more residents to enter into 287(g) agreements, named for a corresponding provision in the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act. Smaller counties would be exempt but could still apply.
SB 8 also would create a grants program, to be run by the comptroller and available to counties with populations under 1 million, to help cover the costs of a 287(g) agreement. The federal government does not provide financial assistance to agencies in the program.
Counties that do not comply with the requirement could be sued by the Texas attorney general.
The 287(g) program gives local law enforcement agencies the option of implementing three models:
- The jail enforcement model lets selected officers investigate, interview and detain individuals who are at the jail after being charged with a crime. Without the agreement, ICE would have to be contacted so a federal officer can go to the jail to interview and detain an individual.
- The warrant service officer model, meant for smaller law enforcement agencies, limits local officers to serving immigration warrants to prisoners. Officers could not investigate an individual’s immigration status.
- The task force model, ended in 2012 but recently reinstated by the Trump administration, authorizes assigned patrol officers to question and arrest individuals suspected of violating immigration laws. ICE is responsible for training the officers.
Law enforcement agencies can participate in multiple models, and Schwertner’s bill does not specify which model state sheriff’s offices would have to join.
The program is intended to stretch the capacity of ICE, which has about 5,500 officers nationwide, said Doris Meissner, the director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
“Under a 287(g) agreement, local sheriff’s deputy or local police officials would actually be trained to administer aspects of immigration laws, as compared with simply responding to ICE when ICE places a detainer on people,” Meissner said.
Rep. Ramon Romero, D-Fort Worth and chair of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus in the House, said requiring such agreements would create “an unfunded mandate that strains local resources” by shifting a federal responsibility onto already strained local agencies.
“Our officers already have enough on their plate and should not be forced into the role of federal immigration officials at the expense of public safety,” he said in a statement.
Romero’s district is in Tarrant County, where the sheriff’s office has had a 287(g) agreement under the jail enforcement model since 2017.
Similar bills in Texas House
In the Texas House, four Republican bills also seek to require law enforcement agencies to enter into 287(g) agreements.
- House Bill 1491 by Rep. Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth would require county commissioners of each county to enter into a cooperative agreement with ICE.
- House Bill 2257 by Rep. AJ Louderback of Victoria would require every sheriff’s office in Texas to join the program. Agencies in a county with less than 75,000 people could participate in a narrower version of the program.
- House Bill 2361 by Rep. David Spiller of Jacksboro says the law enforcement agency of each “political subdivision” in Texas must enter into a cooperative agreement with ICE. Spiller said the bill would apply to city and county law enforcement but exclude departments within school districts, community colleges and universities.
- House Bill 2390 by Rep. Helen Kerwin of Glen Rose is similar to Spiller’s, requiring the governing body of every city and county to enter into an ICE agreement.
The House bills would authorize the attorney general to sue agencies that do not comply. The bills by Schatzline, Spiller and Kerwin also would block state grants for cities and counties without agreements.
Spiller said his bill is meant to close gaps in immigration enforcement, saying the Trump administration needs help finding and arresting migrants who are in the country illegally.
“We want to assist and help in any way that we can,” Spiller said. “We’ve got to get illegal immigrants that are felons, that are breaking the law, that are terrorists. Those are the people that we need to make priority number one to get out of our state and out of our country.”
While Texas lawmakers are looking to require the agreements, law enforcement agencies do not need to be enrolled in the 287(g) program to assist ICE. Jails and prisons that don’t have an immigration agent on site generally inform ICE about inmates whose immigration status is in question or whose undocumented status is confirmed.
Dallas County typically has one ICE officer stationed at the jail, said Doug Sisk, a spokesman for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail. The sheriff’s office also has a separate agreement with ICE that allows individuals on federal immigration detainers to be held for up to 48 hours.
Detainers are meant to give federal agents time to the prisoners into custody.
‘They’re afraid’
Democrats, immigration attorneys and civil rights groups are raising concerns about forced 287(g) agreements.
Woodward with the Texas Civil Rights Project believes the bills are unnecessary because local law enforcement officials in Texas already cooperate with federal immigration authorities by informing them of individuals who may be violating federal immigration laws. In 2017, Abbott signed a law banning “sanctuary cities” and requiring police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the American Immigration Council, said formalized agreements between local law enforcement agencies and ICE can erode public trust, particularly within immigrant communities
“They’re afraid to report crimes or trust these institutions,” Lapointe said. “You lose witnesses. Crimes don’t go reported to the police because people don’t want to be entangled in the immigration system by virtue of having come into contact with the criminal legal system.”
