Thread: The 287(g) Program: Protecting Home Towns and Homeland

The 287(g) Program: Protecting Home Towns and Homeland

By Jessica Vaughan, James R. Edwards Jr.
October 2009

Backgrounders and Reports
Download a pdf of this Backgrounder.
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Jessica M. Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. CIS Fellow James R. Edwards, Jr., PhD, is coauthor of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform.

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Shortly after midnight on September 9, 2001, Maryland state trooper Joseph Catalano pulled over a red Mitsubishi rental car traveling 90 mph in a 65 mph zone on I-95 north of Baltimore. The driver, Ziad Jarrah, had a Florida driver’s license and quietly accepted the $270 fine issued by Catalano before continuing on to join his friends at a hotel in New Jersey. Two days later, Jarrah boarded United Airlines flight 93, which he would later pilot into a field near Shanksville, Pa., killing everyone aboard.

In 2001, Trooper Catalano had no way of knowing that Jarrah was an illegal alien who had overstayed his business visitor visa. But in the years since 9/11, dozens of state and local law enforcement agencies have been able to join ranks with federal immigration authorities under the auspices of the 287(g) program to help identify and remove foreign nationals who commit crimes or otherwise pose a threat to our well-being. These state and local agencies are making a significant contribution to public safety and homeland security, not just in their jurisdictions, but for us all.

Yet the Obama administration, in a move consistent with other recent steps to scale back immigration law enforcement, recently announced its intent to impose new rules for the 287(g) program that unduly constrain the local partners and could allow too many alien scofflaws identified by local agencies to remain here. But even with these changes, which seem to be based on unsubstantiated criticism from ethnic and civil liberties groups, the 287(g) program still remains an effective tool in immigration law enforcement and local crime-fighting. To ensure its continued success, Congress should provide additional funding and guidance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), so that the program continues to meet the needs of local agency partners and the communities they protect.

This Backgrounder examines the 287(g) program’s history and its status. How is it being used? Which law enforcement agencies participate? What has the 287(g) program’s effect been on the foreign-born criminal element? We interviewed participating local law enforcement agencies (LEAs), reviewed statistics and reports provided by local LEAs, analyzed data provided by ICE through a FOIA request, and scoured news reports on the program. We begin by recounting briefly the program’s origin, then describe its application and results. We conclude by offering a number of recommendations. Between those bookends is the story of the 287(g) program’s successes, challenges, and potential.
Some of our findings:

About 1,000 officers from 67 law enforcement agencies have been trained and participate in the program. With 9 new agencies joining and a handful of agencies dropping out in 2009, the total number of participating agencies as of October 2009 is 73.


287(g) officers lodged immigration charges on more than 81,000 illegal or criminal aliens between January 2006 and November 2008, according to data provided to us by ICE.


In 2008, the number of 287(g) arrests (45,36 was equal to one-fifth of all criminal aliens identified by ICE in prisons and jails nationwide that year (221,085). The program has flagged a large number of known serious and/or violent offenders, as well as some low-level offenders still at the bottom of the criminal behavior escalator. Illegal aliens targeted by the program have been identified as a result of involvement in local law-breaking in addition to immigration law-breaking.


While 287(g) agencies use the authority mainly to identify and process illegal aliens who have committed additional crimes, Congress never intended the program to be limited to that use. Lawmakers intended for local agency partners to use the authority for local law enforcement priorities and according to local needs, which may or may not be the same as federal priorities.


Participating agencies credit the 287(g) program as a major factor in reduced local crime rates, smaller inmate populations, and lower criminal justice costs.


287(g) is cost-effective — much less expensive than other criminal alien identification programs such as Secure Communities and Fugitive Operations. For example, in 2008 ICE spent $219 million to remove 34,000 fugitive aliens (mostly criminals). In 2008, ICE was given $40 million for 287(g), which produced more than 45,000 arrests of aliens who were involved in state and local crimes. In Harris County, Texas, the billion-dollar ICE Secure Communities interoperability program found about 1,718 removable aliens in its first six months beginning late in 2008; meanwhile the locally paid 287(g) officers in the same jail system charged about 5,000 criminal aliens over the same time period.


287(g) is a force multiplier. In 2008, the Colorado state 287(g) unit alone made 777 immigration arrests. In that same year the entire ICE investigations office based in Denver, which covers all of Colorado and several other states, made a total of 1,594 arrests. In Maricopa County, Ariz., the local ICE detention and removal manager supervises five ICE deportation agents, who are supplemented by 64 additional locally paid county jail 287(g) officers who also identify and process criminal aliens.


The largest number of agreements have been signed for correctional 287(g) programs. These programs were responsible for 91 percent of the 287(g) arrests over the period we studied.


The task force/investigative programs provide equally important crime-fighting benefits and are a useful tool to address such illegal immigration-related crime problems as alien smuggling, drugs, street gangs, and identity theft.


The Colorado, Arizona, and Alabama 287(g) programs have boosted ICE efforts to combat alien smuggling, which has been neglected since the agency’s formation.


Notwithstanding allegations from immigrant and civil liberties advocates, there have been no confirmed instances of racial profiling, discrimination, or other abuse of authority under the 287(g) program. There is no evidence whatsoever of a “chilling effectâ€

I have been pounding on this for a while now. 287(g) has put more eyes and ears onto the problem, and for that to be curtailed in any way is a horrible mistake. Not making it mandatory to make private employers use E-Verify is another huge mistake.
It is sad to see that ethnic and civil liberty groups can pressure any administration when we as legal, law-abiding citizens continually get shoved aside.

The 287 (g) program should be in every police force in the country. Communities and states need to pay for the training if for whatever reason the feds drag their feet. Cancel the Taser orders and use that money to pay for your immigration arrest training.

The 287 (g) program and E-verify are 2 of the best tools we have to stop illegal immigration, yet the Obama Administration is trying to diminish both of them, as did Bush for years prior to, until ALIPAC and our allies in this fight put pressure on them to do their jobs.

The Harris County Commissioners Court (TEXAS) voted yesterday to continue 287g in Harris County for 3 more years. This gives Sheriff Adrian Garcia the right to have his Department enforce the law and protects the lives of those officers who take very little pay for protecting the lives of the rest of us. Once Country Commissioner voted against 287g and she said it was because of the cost involved. Can you imagine? How can you possibly put a price on one police officer's life?