Since President Donald Trump began his second term, agreements allowing local law enforcement agencies to perform federal immigration duties have surged from 135 in January 2025 to more than 1,000 in September.
The program, known as 287(g), lets officers from state and local agencies collaborate with ICE under three models. Responsibilities range from questioning immigration status in jails under the jail enforcement model and serving ICE warrants under the warrant service model to making immigration-related arrests under the task force model.
Local agencies pay the costs of participating in exchange for ICE training, limited enforcement powers and, soon, financial incentives from the federal government. A law enforcement agency can sign up under multiple models, depending on what resources they have, such as a jail.
As of Sept. 18, there were 34 agreements across Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, a sharp increase from just three in January. At least three other agreements are pending in the region, according to ICE’s public database.
“Most of our neighbors are doing it. Generally, any of those cooperative agreements only help us,” said Sheriff Chad McCumbers of Sioux County in western Nebraska. He joined ICE’s efforts under the task force model in September, and his deputies will soon have the authority to question immigration status and make arrests in the county.
ICE says expansion of the 287(g) program “keeps our communities safer,” a sentiment many participating sheriffs and local law enforcement officers agreed with in interviews with The Midwest Newsroom.
Interviews with participating agencies in the four states show more than 70 local officers have been authorized under the task force model, which acts as a “force multiplier,” that increases all parties’ collective capacity to carry out enforcement, according to ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security recently announced financial incentives for working under this model, and eligible task force officers could soon receive quarterly monetary performance awards up to $1,000, based on the successful location of undocumented immigrants targeted by ICE and overall assistance in furthering ICE’s mission.
“This bonus, which is essentially a bounty, has bad impacts at the local level, including for law enforcement leaders, who’d rather their police forces be focusing on actual public safety threats versus violations of civil immigration law,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at American Immigration Council.
Revived and rapid
In late August, DHS reported that ICE deported nearly 200,000 people in the first seven months of Trump’s second administration. At least 1,700 of those involved the 287(g) program, according to data on ICE’s website.
A DHS announcement in September said the rapid expansion of the 287(g) task force model since January has bolstered ICE’s personnel with 8,501 additional local and state law enforcement officers. At least 2,000 more are in training.
The model enables trained officers, under ICE supervision, to question people about their immigration status, make certain warrantless arrests, issue detainers and hold or transport individuals to ICE detention centers. They can also serve warrants, collect evidence and prepare documents for ICE.
The Obama administration retired the model in 2012 amid civil rights concerns. Trump revived it in his second term, and it now accounts for more than half of all agreements nationwide. In the Midwest, Illinois is the only state that explicitly bans the agreements.
The task force model is expanding ICE’s reach without directly hiring new personnel, which has been apparent in recent months.
Task force model partners have been part of multiple large-scale ICE operations since January, including traffic-stop operations in Nashville, according to ProPublica, and a week-long operation in Florida that led to over 1,120 arrests. Florida and Texas lead the nation with roughly half of all 287(g) agreements, driven in part by state laws requiring ICE 287(g) cooperation.
“It has been wonderful to see people jump in and be a part of it to make sure that we have not just the authorities that we need to go out there and to work, but also to have the local knowledge and the people in the community that really want to be a part of the solution,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to ProPublica in June.
In Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, 287(g) participation is voluntary, and decisions to join these agreements have been made without formal public input. As of September, all four states have one state-level agency participating in the task force model and there are at least 74 authorized officers across the region.
The Midwest Newsroom confirmed 53 Missouri Highway Patrol troopers have been trained under the program, along with three state troopers in Iowa and three agents at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Six state troopers in Nebraska are in the training process.
At the county and municipal level, The Midwest Newsroom confirmed nine deputies in Pulaski County, Missouri, and six deputies in Shawnee County, Kansas, have completed training to participate in the task force model. At least nine others are in training.
Interviews with state and local law enforcement officers show efficiency and alignment with the Trump administration’s immigration efforts, concern about being labeled a “sanctuary” and encouragement from state leaders are among the factors leading to local agreements in these states.
“We got listed as a sanctuary county at one time, and we are not,” said Banner County Sheriff Zane Hopkins in Nebraska, referring to a now-deleted list on the Department of Homeland Security website last year. Hopkins said he, along with one other deputy, are starting their task force training this month in their county of less than 700 people.
For Sheriff Stacy L. Ball in Pulaski County, Missouri, it was a safety decision, he said.
“I have the I-44 corridor that runs from Chicago to Texas. So that’s a major corridor for trafficking, and whether it’s people or drugs,” he said.
Ball has signed all three 287(g) models, becoming one of at least 23 agencies across the country with triple participation in the program.
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a lawyer and policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said this kind of expansion is strategic for ICE.
“They’re recognizing that ICE alone does not have enough personnel to be attempting to carry out Trump’s mass deportations campaign,” Bush-Joseph said.
The Trump administration has stated goals of 3,000 deportations a day and 1 million a year. Bush-Joseph said the new funding incentive will likely accelerate local partnerships.
Salaries, overtime and new cars
The One Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed into law in July, includes $75 billion for ICE over four years, making the agency the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in U.S. history.
The unprecedented allocation has trickled into salary reimbursements for eligible 287(g) officers and agency bonuses for identifying undocumented immigrants.
According to a Sept. 2 news release, starting Oct. 1, 2025, participating law enforcement agencies can be fully reimbursed for the annual salary and benefits of each eligible trained 287(g) officer, including overtime coverage up to 25% of the officer’s annual salary. A bonus structure offers up to $1,000 per officer per quarter for locating undocumented immigrants and assisting ICE.
Mindy Rush Chipman, executive director of the Nebraska ACLU, called the incentive perverse.
“It’s going to encourage some law enforcement departments to put immigration enforcement over the real public-safety needs of that particular community,” Rush Chimpan said. “It’s just taking a model that was already harmful to communities and amplifying it.”
Sheriff Ball in Missouri disagreed with that sentiment. “This doesn’t give us permission to go out there and actively hunt. We follow the law, we follow the Constitution, and if it comes across us, then we deal with it,” he said.
Money has long been a barrier for agencies considering 287(g) participation. Local law enforcement agencies have historically taken on the salary, overtime and other associated costs of the program.
Prince William County in Virginia spent $25.9 million over five years in the program. Alamance County, North Carolina, spent $4.8 million for just one year of its 287(g) program, and Harris County, Texas, chose to end its program in February 2017 because it ended up costing an extra $675,000 per year.
It is unclear how much the program is costing counties or states in the central Midwest.
On Sept. 2, Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the largest law enforcement organization in the U.S., issued a statement celebrating the announcement of the cash infusion from ICE.
“The new reimbursement models reflect DHS’s commitment to equipping our TFM (task force model) programs with the tools and resources needed to meet all challenges,” Yoes wrote.
Yoes said that every trained and credentialed officer will receive up to $7,500 for essential equipment, including a laptop and mobile phone with cellular service upon becoming operational and qualified law enforcement agencies may receive up to $100,000 for the purposes of purchasing new vehicles.
Yoes and the Fraternal Order of Police did not respond to requests for comment. ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment about the new reimbursement opportunities. Two local agencies in the region confirmed they have received communications from ICE about the funding.
Most law enforcement agencies contacted for this story said the new funding announcement does not immediately change their procedures, but for McCumbers, in Sioux County, Nebraska, it means the possibility of hiring more staff in his county of about 1,100 residents.
“We’re very busy as it is, but it might change priorities a little bit if we have a monetary incentive,” McCumbers said.
‘Ripe for abuse’
When Brown County, Nebraska, received an outreach email about the 287(g) program this year, the sheriff signed up for all three models.
A Brown County official said the county did not want to be seen as not cooperating with ICE, thinking the counties around them would also sign up.
The county soon found itself in agreements it could not fulfill with a small, rural department. In January, ICE suspended its advisory board to process agreements in a “timely manner,” leaving no designated oversight group to vet applications from local agencies.
A Brown County official said she was left to figure the program out herself, and leaders quickly decided to withdraw from all three memoranda of understanding with ICE.
“We’ve decided to withdraw from the 287(g) MOU on all models,” Brown County said in an emailed statement to The Midwest Newsroom. “It is our opinion that this program is better suited for Law Enforcement at NSP [Nebraska State Patrol] or large cities such as Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island or counties with I-80 running through them.”
ICE did not respond to emails asking about Brown County’s approval. The county also declined to share its emails with ICE, citing privacy reasons. As of Sept. 18, it is still listed as a participating agency on ICE’s public list.
Immigration advocates said Brown County’s short-lived involvement with ICE again raises the question of oversight in the program. In 2018, ICE’s own internal watchdog released a report stating that ICE had not prepared adequately for 287(g) program growth and might not be training or monitoring law enforcement officers efficiently.
In 2021, the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, released a separate report outlining how ICE had expanded the program rapidly without measuring whether it improved public safety or ensured that civil rights safeguards were being followed.
“With that proliferation of these agreements and very little oversight, no one checking to ensure that they are adhering to laws, the Constitution, you know, it is ripe for abuse,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog currently suing ICE for withholding public records related to 287(g).
As of September 2025, the Government Accountability Office is still monitoring two open recommendations on its website that have yet to be addressed. They include establishing performance measures and goals to manage the program and to assess its partners to optimize program resources. ICE did not respond to emails asking about its 287(g) oversight mechanisms.
Three sheriffs participating in the program told The Midwest Newsroom that oversight has been sufficient and they do not have civil rights concerns.
Training fast-tracked
Training has been a main concern for immigration advocates critical of the 287(g) program. According to ICE, after a law enforcement agency joins the 287(g) program, ICE will train officers in immigration law, multicultural communication and avoiding racial profiling.
In a June complaint, American Oversight asked for instruction and guidance materials as well as emails about the training, but is still waiting for the requested documents.
“We’re asking for materials that should have already been created, training materials,” Chukwu said. “It is unreasonable for them to take as long as they’ve taken to produce information.”
In Florida, training has been streamlined in recent months according to a news report from WUSF. Previously, the jail enforcement model required four weeks of training, and is now only five days. The warrant service officer model training went from eight to four hours. The task force model training reportedly requires 40 hours of training.
“One week of training is certainly not enough to meaningfully educate somebody on what enforcement should look like and what violations of immigration law matter,” said Gupta, policy director at American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy organization.
“We understand from talking to sheriffs around the country that they are decreasing the training requirements and sometimes just talking about training and not following up meaningfully in practice and using PowerPoints that exclude training on the Fourth Amendment and protections against racial discrimination,” Gupta said.
In Missouri, Pulaski County Sheriff Stacy L. Ball said the training is online and in-depth.
“There’s a lot to go through, and at the end, you take a test of your knowledge for each module,” Ball said. “We don’t know every law. We got to look in our books, just like everything, and that’s what this is. This gives us a foundation.”
No chance for public comment
According to ICE guidance, a participating agency must hold a public steering committee meeting, consisting of local law enforcement leadership and ICE officials, in the first six months of a 287(g) agreement, with 30 days’ notice before the meeting.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation did not hold a public meeting. In an email to The Midwest Newsroom, a KBI representative said this requirement was not an explicit part of its 287(g) agreement. The agency referred all reporter questions to ICE, which did not respond. The Iowa Department of Public Safety is past the 30-day advanced notice mark and also has not scheduled a public meeting, even in the face of public calls to end its 287(g) agreement.
“We won’t stop until the Iowa ICE Task Force is disbanded and civil rights are respected,” Iowa resident Ninoska Campos told KCRG. Campos was one of seven people asked about their immigration status during an April traffic stop in Dubuque, Iowa.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety told The Midwest Newsroom that the officer involved was not a 287(g) task force officer, and he did not contact one during the stop.
“287(g) agreements have already led to that kind of racial profiling because local police, of course, cannot tell if a person is undocumented or in violation of immigration law, because nobody wears that as a sign on their head, and so local police often go into communities where they’re more likely to find immigrants,” Gupta said.
Gupta also said the agreements undermine public safety by making immigrant communities afraid to report crime, and they divert local policing resources away from public safety challenges.
Rush Chipman, the ACLU of Nebraska executive director, said she saw this firsthand in Dakota County, Nebraska, in 2018, when it signed the first 287(g) agreement in the state. At the time, she was a practicing immigration lawyer, and said her clients were worried about reporting crime out of fear they could be questioned themselves.
“287(g) agreements undermine safety in our communities, for all of us, regardless of what model it is,” she said.
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
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METHODS
To report this story, journalist Naomi Delkamiller interviewed five law enforcement officers in active 287(g) agreements in the central Midwest to learn why they decided to participate, if they had civil rights concerns and if newly announced financial incentives would affect their policing. She had email correspondence with four additional law enforcement agencies in the region and reviewed dozens of 287(g) MOAs covering all three models. She reached out to policy analysts, experts and immigrant-rights advocates to understand the existence and effects of these partnerships and reviewed multiple investigations related to the oversight and transparency of the program. Delkamiller also looked at current litigation involving the program and local and state laws that encourage or ban participation across the country.
REFERENCES
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (1996)
Lack of Planning Hinders Effective Oversight and Management of ICE’s Expanding 287(g) Program (Office of Inspector General | Sept. 19, 2018)
Steering committee guidance (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement | May 18, 2020)
ICE Can Further Enhance Its Planning and Oversight of State and Local Agreements (Government Accountability Office | January 2021)
ICE Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement | 2025)
Protecting the American People Against Invasion (The White House | Jan. 20, 2025)
Suspension of the 287(g) Program Advisory Board (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement | Jan. 30, 2025)
American Oversight v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Complaint (United States District Court for the District of Columbia | June 6, 2025)
DHS Announces New Reimbursement Opportunities for State and Local Law Enforcement Partnering with ICE to Arrest the Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens (Department of Homeland Security | Sept. 2, 2025)
Statement from Patrick Yoes, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, Supporting 287(g) Program Partnerships (National Fraternal Order of Police | Sept. 2, 2025)
DHS 287(g) Reaches More Than 1,000 Partnerships with State and Local Enforcement to Help Remove the Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens (Department of Homeland Security | Sept. 17, 2025)
TYPE OF ARTICLE
Enterprise — in-depth examination of a subject requiring extensive research and sourcing.
