Trump is recruiting thousands of local officers to aid immigration
effort. Some states are saying no
[February 18, 2026]
By DAVID A. LIEB and BRIAN WITTE
Over the past 18 years, officers at Maryland's Frederick County jail
have asked thousands of inmates two standard questions: What country are
you a citizen of? And where were you born?
If the answer was anything other than the United States, local officers
deputized with special federal authority launched an investigation into
whether the person was in the country illegally. Since 2008, Frederick
County has turned over 1,884 people to U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, Sheriff Charles Jenkins said.
But that is coming to an immediate halt under a law signed Tuesday by
Democratic Gov. Wes Moore that prohibits immigration enforcement
agreements with the federal government.
The new Maryland law highlights the extent to which Democratic-led
states are pushing back against President Donald Trump's immigration
crackdown. Ten states — all led by Democrats — now have statewide
policies prohibiting law enforcement officers from cooperating in one of
the primary programs Trump is using to carry out his agenda of mass
deportations.
Laws banning cooperative agreements with ICE were signed earlier this
month in New Mexico and took effect last month in Maine. New York Gov.
Kathy Hochul also is backing legislation that would ban local law
officers from being deputized by ICE. And Virginia Gov. Abigail
Spanberger recently terminated state ICE agreements signed under her
Republican predecessor, though her order didn't cancel existing
arrangements with local sheriffs.
Democratic resistance has increased as the Trump administration faces
mounting scrutiny over its large-scale immigration enforcement efforts
in several cities and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti
by federal agents in Minnesota.
“There needs to be accountability for this organization, because right
now the Trump-Vance ICE operation is not moving with proper
accountability measures,” Moore told reporters after signing the new
restrictions.
The longtime Republican sheriff of Frederick County contends the
termination of a cooperative agreement with ICE will force him to let
some people out of jail who may later commit more crimes.
“I’m extremely disappointed with the legislation," Jenkins said,
"because really and truly, it’s going to put the public at risk in a lot
of ways.”
ICE agreements rise tenfold under Trump
Upon taking office last year, Trump revived a decades-old program that
trains local law officers to interrogate and detain people suspected of
being in the U.S. illegally.
The 287(g) program — named for a section of the 1996 law that created it
— had been used during President Joe Biden's administration only for
immigrants already jailed or imprisoned on charges. But Trump expanded
it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets,
resurrecting a model that former President Barack Obama had discontinued
amid concerns about racial profiling.
Participation in the program has exploded, from 135 agreements in 20
states before Trump took office to more than 1,400 current agreements in
a total of 41 states and territories. Some local agencies have multiple
agreements covering different immigration enforcement functions.
About 800 entities have task force pacts, granting the most expansive
authority. As an incentive, ICE offers local agencies that sign task
force agreements $100,000 for new vehicles. And for each trained task
force officer, ICE covers the salary, benefits and $7,500 for equipment.
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Texas — all led by Republicans — require
local jails to participate in the program. Those states account for half
of all 287(g) agreements.
The growth in ICE agreements has come alongside a surge in federal
immigration enforcement funding. A big tax-cut law Trump signed last
year allots $150 billion for immigration enforcement, including more
than $46 billion to hire 10,000 ICE agents and $45 billion to expand
immigrant detention centers.
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A federal agent wears a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
badge in New York, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
Less cooperation could mean more ICE agents, some say
Nine Maryland counties with Republican sheriffs have cooperative
agreements with ICE. Those pacts must end under the new law, which
passed overwhelmingly in the Democratic-led General Assembly.
Maryland House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who immigrated from the
Dominican Republic when she was 8, said the bill shows that Maryland
values civil rights.
“We value empathy,” she said. “We value peoples’ contribution. We
value the Constitution. We value and support and protect civil
rights.”
But banning cooperative agreements could lead ICE to send more of
its own officers to the state, some Republican sheriffs and
lawmakers said.
“I think what you’ll see is more immigrant enforcement, not less,”
said Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, whose agency has turned
over about 430 inmates to ICE for over the past nine years. “Our
program was the safest way and the best way to identify people” in
the U.S. illegally.
The Department of Homeland Security said the new law "will make
Maryland less safe” and increase its workload there.
“When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with DHS,
our law enforcement officers have to have a more visible presence so
that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and
back into communities,” the department said in a statement.
New ICE limits are mirroring public pushback
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump has “gone too far” in sending
federal immigration agents into U.S. cities, according to an AP-NORC
poll that suggests political independents are increasingly
uncomfortable with his tactics.
“The growing public pushback against Trump's immigration enforcement
– especially in more Democratic-leaning states – has created
political pressure and a political opening to pass laws like the one
in Maryland,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the nonprofit
American Immigration Council.
On Tuesday, the Virginia Senate passed a bill on party lines that
would place hefty guardrails on any proposed 287(g) agreements. That
bill now goes to the House, which previously passed a similar
version.
“I’m seeking to give some comfort to thousands of men, women and
children in the Commonwealth who are living in fear that federal
agents might send them or their family members to a country they
fled, or a country they have never been to,” said Democratic state
Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, who put forward the bill.
Lawmakers in New Mexico also cited the intense immigration
enforcement efforts in Minnesota as a reason to limit cooperation
with ICE. The New Mexico measure prohibits state and local
government contracts for ICE detention facilities and bars
agreements that allow local law officers to carry out federal
immigration functions.
Curry County, a rural area about 100 miles (161 kilometers)
southwest of Amarillo, Texas, is the only New Mexico jurisdiction
with a 287(g) agreement. Sheriff Michael Brockett said the
arrangement has provided a secure way to transfer people to ICE
custody, “rather than federal agents searching for released
prisoners on the streets and in neighborhoods of our community.”
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Associated Press writer Olivia Diaz contributed to this report.
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