How is your local government collaborating with ICE? Here’s how to find out — and push back

From the deputization of local police to holding people on behalf of ICE, here are some ways your county might be working with federal agents — and what you can do to push back.

by Regan Huston and Jacob Kang-Brown, February 23, 2026

As the Trump administration’s deportation agenda unfolds, federal agents have assaulted communities across the U.S. Most news coverage has focused solely on agents’ presence on the ground, but what’s less talked about is the key role that local jails and law enforcement have played — even in sanctuary cities.

Hiding in Plain SightHow jails help Trump’s deportation agenda

The reality is that your county might be working with federal agents in quiet ways that are fueling Trump’s deportation campaign. Here, we outline how to find out whether your local government is collaborating with ICE and what you can do push back.

What does collaboration between local governments and federal agents look like?

In our 2025 report, Hiding in Plain Sight, we showed that Trump’s deportation agenda isn’t possible without the cooperation of local jails and police. In general, there are three formal ways they collaborate.¹

287(g) agreements

These are the most widely-known forms of cooperation with federal agents. Most of the time, ICE forms an agreement with local law enforcement agencies, allowing for the deputization of local officials. This means local police and sheriffs can act as immigration enforcement agents, and start doing ICE’s dirty work within their own communities.

States like Florida and Georgia require this collaboration, and they’ve seen much higher rates of immigration-related arrests because of it. Blocking these agreements helps reduce ICE arrest rates, and communities are safer for it.

ICE detention

Local jails provide ICE with both detention space and people to arrest.

Many jails have contracts that enable them to rent out beds to the federal government to detain immigrants. These contracts are a perverse way for sheriffs to rake in millions of dollars each year, and are voluntary. Local governments can and should cancel them, like Glendale, Calif. did last year.

In addition to contracted capacity, ICE relies on jails to hold people until they can make an immigration arrest. This means that instead of releasing people when they’re supposed to, jails can hold someone for additional days if ICE asks them to do so. Then, a federal agent will come and arrest them. These “holds” are the result of police sharing information with federal agencies about who has been arrested. It is important to note that this, too, is entirely voluntary. Jails are not required to honor ICE’s requests to hold people for this extra time, and because this also adds to crowded jail conditions, they arguably should refuse.

U.S. Marshals Service contracts

Advocates have long sought “sanctuary” policies that restrict local governments’ abilities to support federal immigration enforcement. But many sanctuary policies only focus on the civil immigration process — and fail to protect people with criminalized immigration status, a definition that the Trump administration is constantly expanding. So even in places like Illinois, which is a “sanctuary state,” the federal government can circumvent this policy by bringing criminal — instead of the typical civil — immigration charges against people. This change allows the federal government to hold people for immigration offenses in local jails that would otherwise be outside of their network. The federal government does this using contracts between the local jails and the U.S. Marshals Service, which handles pretrial detention for federal criminal cases. (Importantly, many sanctuary policies only block ICE from renting jail space and ignore the U.S. Marshals.)¹

This longstanding loophole transforms what are normally civil immigration matters into more serious federal crimes, and hides the true scale of immigrant detention from public view.

How do I know what is happening in my county?

Monitoring this collaboration can be tricky, and relationships between local governments and federal agents are rapidly changing. To help keep track, the Prison Policy Initiative put together a resource to help you figure out whether, and to what extent, your county may be collaborating with federal agencies.

To check whether your county has a 287(g) agreement as of February 17, 2026, see Appendix Table 1.

To check whether your local jail is used for U.S. Marshals detention and/or ICE detention as of February 5, 2026, see Appendix Table 2.

Remember, these aren’t the only ways that local governments work with the federal government to support their immigration enforcement efforts. These are just the easiest to document. You should inquire with local officials in your community to understand any informal ways they may also be supporting these efforts.

What can I do to push back against this collaboration?

It’s important to remember that for most states, local collaboration with federal agencies is entirely voluntary and President Trump’s deportation agenda cannot happen without state and local officials. We put together some guidance on how you can push back against this cooperation.

Hold sheriffs accountable

Jails are controlled by sheriffs, who for the most part are elected officials. You can ask them to immediately take action and stop working with ICE. Safety Bound put together this toolkit, which offers guidance and examples of the demands you can make of sheriffs to end their collaboration with federal agencies for good.

Put pressure on local lawmakers

You can also put pressure on local lawmakers to end cooperation with federal agencies. For example, when a Delaware police department signed a 287(g) agreement, community members organized and confronted the chief of police, mayor, and town council. Shortly after, local officials rescinded the agreement. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center put together a guide with recommendations for those looking to do the same.

Call on state lawmakers to act

Advocacy at the state level is also essential. You can call on state lawmakers to take a hard stance against working with ICE and ban all law enforcement departments from collaborating with federal agencies on both civil and criminal immigration enforcement. State lawmakers can pass policies to ensure that even if a county does not have a 287(g) agreement, it is not collaborating with federal immigration officials in other ways.

You can also call for state and local lawmakers to end contracts with the U.S. Marshals, closing the loophole that allows ICE to use contracted local jails in sanctuary cities, counties, and states.

Stay informed

As the crimmigration crisis continues to unfold and rapidly change, one of the most important things you can do is stay informed.

Right now, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE are actively trying to expand their existing detention network to include large warehouses, which will undoubtedly harm communities. Learn more about this cruel attempt and how to fight back with Detention Watch Network’s toolkit.

Finally, as immigration detention is not our primary area of expertise, we’ve compiled several resources from experts and organizations directly focused on immigration.

Appendices

Local law enforcement can support ICE and the criminalization of immigration in both formal and informal ways. These tables show information on two of the formal ways that local agencies work with the federal government: by deputizing local officers to serve ICE (Appendix Table 1) or by providing jail space (Appendix Table 2).

Appendix Table 1. Local law enforcement deputization for Immigration policing under 287(g) and date of agreement

Local law enforcement leadership can enter agreements with ICE to deputize officers to work on the Trump administration’s deportation agenda under a program known as 287(g). This table lists any agency that has entered a 287(g) agreement with ICE, and the date the agreement was made.

There are three different models of these agreements. The Task Force Model involves deputized agents joining an ICE task force for a raid or other kind of activity in the community. The other two models, Jail Enforcement and Warrant Service Officer, involve deputized activities in relation to people held in the local jail.

The Jail Enforcement Model trains staff to take on ICE investigative and paperwork duties, like preparing charging documents, issuing a notice to appear, and immigration detainers. This model also allows local police to transfer people to an ICE field office or to actual ICE detention before the 48-hour detainer period ends.

The Warrant Service Officer model has more limited duties, and requires ICE to be more involved. This information is current as of February 17, 2026.