New Policy Brief Highlights Escalation of 287g Agreements and Massive Racial Profiling
July 30, 2025
(San Antonio, Texas)—Under the second Trump administration, law enforcement agencies are increasingly entering into 287(g) agreements that allow state and local police to act as immigration enforcement agents. Although there is ample documentation of the harms, such as the massive exacerbation of racial profiling, and financial waste these agreements bring to communities, the number of 287(g) agreements continue to skyrocket.
In this new policy brief by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) and AJA Advocacy Solutions, Immigration Dragnet: The New Era of 287(g), the program’s harms are documented, along with recommendations on how local electeds and advocates can work together to terminate these agreements. The brief also details how the 287(g) program has risen in notoriety since 2008, when the first law enforcement agency entered into an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“The ILRC has been documenting 287(g) abuses since its inception and we remain committed to highlighting the dangers of 287(g) and supporting advocates who are organizing to bring an end to this program that threatens our communities,” said Priscilla Olivarez, ILRC Senior Policy Attorney & Strategist. “These 287(g) agreements extend the reach of the Trump administration’s violent deportation machine by recruiting law enforcement agencies to do ICE’s work–almost entirely at the expense of the local agency, draining taxpayer dollars. We stand alongside communities who are campaigning for their localities to invest in public safety by funding community needs rather than law enforcement.”
The policy brief highlights how the alarming proliferation of 287(g) programs is compounded by the rise in recent years of state legislation either mandating that local jurisdictions enter into 287(g) agreements or cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, most notably:
- SB 1808 in Florida (requiring localities operating county jails to enter into 287(g) agreements) and
- SB 8 in Texas, which requires each county that operates a jail or contracts with a private vendor to operate a jail to enter into 287(g) agreements. This law mandates 287(g) agreements in at least 234 of the state’s 254 counties.
Despite the escalation of these harmful agreements, the policy brief highlights how sustained local organizing has led to the successful termination of several 287(g) agreements. Two examples are Alamance County, North Carolina, and Gwinnett County, Georgia. These coalition-driven campaigns included activities like: monitoring and tracking 287(g) activity and due process violations; canvassing to raise community awareness of 287(g) and how to end it; pursuing litigation where viable, and demanding federal investigation into potentially unlawful practices.
“Community resistance to these dangerous and wasteful agreements is critical,” said Olivarez. “These 287(g) agreements not only lead to rampant racial profiling and constitutional violations, but they siphon away precious resources that could help the elderly, children, the unhoused and others in our localities. Communities that want to resist the unchecked spread of 287(g) programs in their state can look to the organizing success stories in localities throughout the country. We know rights are being violated and communities are working together to document and challenge these harms.”
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