While media attention often focuses on President Trump’s stream of insulting and divisive comments about immigration, less attention has been devoted to the administration’s ongoing effort to enlist local communities to carry out his agenda. The Trump administration wants to expand a program called “287g,” which effectively deputizes local law enforcement agents to act as agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
These agreements can tear communities apart, and have potentially serious fiscal, economic, and legal risks. That is why many communities are looking to end existing 287g agreements or thinking twice before signing up to be the agents of Trump’s immigration agenda. For example, the primary elections on May 8th saw the incumbent sheriff in Mecklenburg, who reauthorized that county’s 287g program, go down to defeat.
The Trump administration did not invent the 287g program, but it clearly sees it as a tool for implementing its agenda. The administration has signed up over 45 new localities to enforce its immigration priorities since January 2017 and currently has agreements in place with six sheriff’s offices in North Carolina (Wake, Mecklenburg, Gaston, Cabarrus, Nash, and Henderson). Alamance County had its 287g agreement terminated due to allegations of discriminatory practices, but has subsequently applied to have it reinstated.
Beyond creating fear and fostering distrust, 287g agreements have far-reaching fiscal, economic, and legal implications for local communities.
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Large cost to local taxpayers
When local sheriffs’ offices sign 287g agreements, they are pledging to pay for a big part of the cost of doing immigration enforcement work. This even includes paying for travel and lodging for employees to receive the training required to participate in the program.
This is from the Wake County’s sheriff’s office 287g agreement: “The WSCO is responsible for the salaries and benefits, including overtime, of its personnel being trained or performing duties under this MOA… The WCSO will cover the costs of all WSCO personnel’s travel, housing, and per diem affiliated with the training required for participation in this MOA.”
The local resources that 287g agreements consume could be utilized for other vital public safety needs. When the sheriff in Harris County, Texas pulled out of its 287g agreement, the sheriff’s office was able to reassign ten deputies, and their $675,000 in salary costs to other local priorities.