When Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore signed emergency legislation last month prohibiting agreements between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities, he was pushing back against one of the fastest-growing pieces of President Donald Trump’s deportation strategy.

The expansion of immigration enforcement hasn’t happened primarily through high-profile raids: It has unfolded through formal partnerships between sheriffs’ offices or local police departments and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under what’s known as the 287(g) program.

These agreements allow deputies or police officers, after federal training, to carry out certain immigration enforcement functions, most commonly screening people booked into local jails and coordinating transfers to federal custody.

The growth has been rapid. By Jan. 26, there were 1,372 such agreements nationwide — up from 135 in January 2025 and 150 at the end of Trump’s first term, according to a new analysis by FWD.us, a policy and advocacy organization dedicated to criminal justice and immigration issues.

As of March 2, ICE reported 1,493 active 287(g) agreements with local police agencies across 40 states, according to its online dashboard.

Trump’s mass deportation plan depends heavily on cooperation from state and local politicians and law enforcement officials, according to experts. But as the number of partnerships climb, statehouses are split over whether local police should be in the immigration business at all.

For some lawmakers and law enforcement leaders, 287(g) agreements are a necessary crime-fighting tool that protects communities from dangerous people. For others, it is a policy that risks blurring the line between local policing and federal immigration enforcement in ways that could potentially harm community relationships for years, making it harder to prevent and respond to local crime.

Maryland joins about a dozen other states that have enacted laws restricting or prohibiting police from participating in 287(g) agreements. Meanwhile, Florida and Georgia now require local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE.

The result is a patchwork shaped less by Washington, D.C., than by governors, legislatures and elected sheriffs — many of whom disagree sharply about whether the partnerships enhance public safety or undermine it.

Neither the U.S. Department of Homeland Security nor ICE responded to Stateline’s multiple requests for comment.

‘It’s kept this county safe’

In Frederick County, Maryland, Republican Sheriff Chuck Jenkins maintained a 287(g) agreement with ICE for 18 years — possibly one of the longest-running partnerships in the country.

It was one of at least nine such agreements in the state. Frederick County is also one of three Maryland counties operating under the jail enforcement model, in which people arrested on local charges are screened for potential immigration violations. If ICE issues a detainer, the transfer to federal custody occurs inside the detention center. Since the signing of the new law, the sheriffs — including Jenkins — have 90 days to formally end their agreements.

Jenkins rejects the idea that the agreement erodes community trust.

“That’s rhetoric. That’s political talk. It’s not honest,” he told Stateline. “The lawmakers of Maryland have lied to the public. They’re wrong on this, and by passing this legislation, they’ve now placed more Marylanders at risk.”

Jenkins said the partnership has led to the removal of 1,884 people from Frederick County since 2008.

“It’s kept this county safe. We have the lowest crime rate in the region, in part, because of this program,” he said. “When you look at the fact that we have removed 1,884 criminals out of Frederick County, I damn well guarantee it’s made a difference.”

Frederick County and some neighboring counties have had lower crime rates compared with other parts of the state in recent years, according to Maryland’s crime statistics dashboard.

Jenkins argued that banning 287(g) agreements could produce the opposite of what lawmakers intended by pushing ICE operations into neighborhoods.

“This [law] is all about pushing back against the Trump administration, but this program has nothing to do with that,” he said. “This program has been working effectively.”

Scott Adams, the Republican sheriff of Cecil County, Maryland, which also used the jail model under its contract with ICE, described the agreements as a way to manage crime.

“Any tool and resource that I have on the legal side of things to help make communities safer, I’m going to take advantage of,” Adams said.

Adams echoed Jenkins’ concern that without jail-based cooperation, ICE agents would have to make more arrests in the community.

“Before, we had peaceful transfers … in our detention facility. It’s much safer and easier for everyone involved,” Adams said. “Versus now … [ICE is] going to come put boots on the ground and go find these people. It just exacerbates a lot of situations.”

‘It erodes the trust’

Other sheriffs see the issue differently.

In Michigan, Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia Dyer, a Democrat, said she declined to enter into a 287(g) agreement after taking office last year, despite the federal push to recruit more local partners.

“Not only does it erode the trust, the way that the leadership at the top is operating is really hurting not only local law enforcement officers, but other agencies in the federal government,” said Dyer, whose county includes Ann Arbor.

She said the expansion of federal immigration efforts has placed local officers in what she called an “impossible situation,” because residents often do not distinguish between local deputies and federal immigration agents.

That confusion, she argued, can have consequences for victims and witnesses — including U.S. citizens who might be worried about whether they need to carry papers to show their legal status, or are reluctant to report a crime.

“People are scared to drive to work if their car gets broken into, you know, they just kind of have to deal with it,” Dyer said. “You’re effectively creating a situation where people are fearful of participating in democracy.”

Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, also in Michigan, said the past year’s rollout has undercut years of effort aimed at strengthening police legitimacy.

“They’re taking us backwards,” said Swanson, a Democrat who is running for governor. “It is eroding the public trust that local law enforcement, county, myself and state law enforcement, try to do every single day.”

When residents are afraid to call for help — even in emergencies — he said, that affects more than immigration cases.

“There’s a lot of underreported crimes … from human trafficking to assaults because people are scared,” Swanson said.

An estimated nearly 50% of violent crime was not reported to the police in 2024, according to the most recent federal crime victimization data. Some policing and criminology experts say immigrants — including those living in the country illegally — may be less likely to report crimes because of fear of retaliation or deportation, or concerns that police will not help them.

Some experts say those concerns are consistent with what decades of policing research show about legitimacy.

“When you don’t have [trust], police are not able to effectively manage crime,” said Logan Kennedy, an assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at East Carolina University in North Carolina. “We might see reduced crime reporting, we might see reduced cooperation with police … which can have impacts on how cases are processed through the system.”

Marc Levin, the chief policy counsel at the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice, said community perception often matters just as much as formal policies or agreements with ICE.

“In some jurisdictions, the public may think that the police are cooperating more … than they actually are,” Levin said. “Negative perceptions of ICE are going to rub off on [police], and it’s going to undermine the work that they’ve done to build credibility with the community.”

Jay Pitts, an officer at the Lincoln Airport Authority Police Department in Nebraska, says people often appear uncomfortable when they see him in uniform at the airport.

“You can just feel that they just are uneasy,” Pitts said. Pitts is running for sheriff in Lancaster County as a Democrat. “It affects citizens, it affects law enforcement, and … we just have to rebuild this again.”

Staffing pressures and training gaps

The federal government launched a multimillion-dollar recruitment campaign last year to hire thousands of new ICE agents and support staff. In January, ICE announced that the campaign had resulted in the hiring of more than 12,000 officers and agents nationwide in less than a year.

In Florida, several sheriffs whose offices are partnering with ICE through 287(g) agreements publicly criticized federal outreach after their officers received recruitment materials. The federal government spent nearly $1 million on an advertising campaign in Atlanta aimed at luring local law enforcement officers away from departments.

“You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe,” the narrator in the Atlanta ad said. “But in sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free.”

Beyond recruitment, some local officials question whether federal immigration enforcement operates under the same training standards that state-certified officers must meet.

“The fact that we go to academy and our standards are similar no matter where you go — that is not the case on the federal level,” said Swanson, the Genesee County sheriff. “The states have no impact over what kind of training, or if [the feds] have training.”

When these differences collide, it creates division within law enforcement due to a lack of coordination, Swanson said, and the limited cooperation that does exist continues to undermine community trust.

Municipal, county and state police officers remain bound by their respective state laws and department policies, regardless of any agreement with federal immigration authorities.

A former ICE instructor, Ryan Schwank, told Congress last week that the agency has sharply reduced training requirements since it rapidly expanded its ranks. Internal documents he shared show the ICE academy program was shortened from 72 days in July to 42 days by February, with 16 hours of firearms instruction removed and several use-of-force and constitutional law courses either cut or condensed.

“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” Schwank said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, quickly disputed that any subject matter was eliminated, saying the training was streamlined without lowering standards.

____

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

____

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.