Agreements between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement that allow officers to make federal immigration arrests have increased by 950% in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to a new analysis of ICE data.
As of Jan. 26, there were 1,168 agencies with officers trained to help ICE, up from 135 during the Biden administration and 150 at the end of Trump’s first term, according to the analysis by FWD.US, a nonpartisan policy organization.
The Trump administration has called on local law enforcement to support its growing deportation operations nationwide, reviving a controversial “task force” model that allows local police officers to be deputized by ICE to stop people and make arrests based on suspicion that someone is in the country illegally.
Under the program, police are “deputized” to ICE while they’re also expected to continue doing their regular work. The Dallas Police Department recently rejected a proposal to join, citing concerns that their officers would be pulled away from their normal duties.
And the Montgomery County, Maryland, district attorney and police chiefs association said in a joint statement that none of its departments had signed any agreements with ICE. The county borders Washington, D.C.
“The Montgomery County Detective Bureau and police departments in Montgomery County do not enforce civil immigration orders; enforceable warrants must be signed by a judge,” the statement read.
But in New Orleans, while local leaders do not want to participate, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order directing state law enforcement agencies to help in federal immigration operations, including encouraging local departments to sign on to the ICE program.
The “task force” model was discontinued by the Obama administration in 2012 in part over accusations of racial profiling by local officers in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Alamance County, North Carolina. The Trump administration restarted the program in early 2025, with new funding and incentives for states, local police departments and sheriff’s offices.
ICE’s advertising for the program promised to give law enforcement agencies $7,500 for equipment per trained officer; $100,000 for new vehicles and overtime pay of up to 25% of an officer’s salary.
The analysis shows 39 states have policing agencies now participating, but didn’t give the total number of officers now working with ICE.
The states with the most participating agencies were Florida, with 342 agreements, Texas, with 296 agreements, Tennessee, with 63 agreements, Pennsylvania, with 58 agreements and Alabama with 52 agreements, according to the analysis by FWD.US, which advocates for immigration and criminal justice reforms.
State and local police agencies and sheriffs departments potentially stand to gain between $1.4 billion and $2 billion this year if they agree to participate because of the large infusion of cash from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the organization predicted.
“This amount would dwarf all other federal funding for local law enforcement,” the FWD.US report found.
As the cooperation grows between federal and local law enforcement, support for Trump’s immigration agenda is declining after federal immigration agents shot and killed two Americans last month, according to the new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.
Sixty percent of those surveyed in the week after the death of Alex Pretti in Minnesota somewhat or strongly disapproved of Trump’s actions on border security and immigration. Another 40% approved of Trump on the issue, including 27% who strongly approved and 13% who somewhat approved.
Most of the criticism over immigration enforcement tactics have been focused on federal officers, who have surged operations in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago and elsewhere. But as more and more local police are trained to make immigration arrests, that could change.
“I suspect we will start to hear more of those stories,” said Felicity Rose, vice president of criminal justice research and policy at FWD.US who analyzed the data. Last time the model was in place, she said, “there were a lot of effects on communities, including reduced attendance at schools, reduced health care access, all the things we see when ICE comes to town when people are afraid to leave their houses.”
“The fear is that the quotas and surveillance we have seen from ICE is spreading across the country in a wider way,” she said.
The Trump administration has championed the program. ICE said on its website that it “recognizes the importance of its relationships with law enforcement partners—including state, local, and tribal agencies—to carry out its critical mission.”
By delegating duties, the program makes it possible to better protect “the homeland through the arrest and removal” of immigrants “who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,” ICE said on its website.
