The Trump administration has revived a long-abandoned program that lets local and state law enforcement challenge people on the street about immigration status — and possibly arrest them for deportation.
So far, state and county agencies in Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas have already signed up for the “task force” program that was dropped in 2012 after abuses including racial profiling were discovered, costing tens of millions in lawsuits. New Hampshire State Police will sign an agreement soon.
A webpage for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement noted 11 new agreements with agencies in five states between Feb. 17 and Feb. 19 for the controversial program. The program, known at ICE as its “task force model,” allows local law enforcement officers to challenge people on immigration status in the course of routine police work, Stateline reports.
The task force agreements with ICE were discontinued in 2012 during the Obama administration after a 2011 Department of Justice investigation found widespread racial profiling and other discrimination against Latinos in an Arizona task force.
The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) was the first agency in the nation to reach one of these new agreements, WLRN reports. Four other statewide police agencies in Florida have followed suit.
“We have set the stage for other states to follow, and I think you are going to see more states doing that in the ensuing weeks and months,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis at a recent press conference.
Agreements were als shown for Idaho’s Owyhee County Sheriff’s Office, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, three Oklahoma state agencies (the Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Narcotics), the Texas attorney general’s office and sheriffs in Douglas County, Nevada, and the Texas counties of Goliad and Smith.
The new task force agreements also are separate from other so-called 287(g) cooperation agreements that allow local sheriffs or police departments to help with investigations of people already arrested and booked into local jails.
The task force model goes further, with ICE describing it as a “force multiplier.” The federal agency trains and supervises local officers so they can arrest people for immigration violations during their day-to-day duties.
It’s hard to say how many immigration arrests and deportations might result from the revived task forces. Local officers trained for task force agreements are generally busy with other patrol tasks. A 2011 report by the Migration Policy Institute — based on 2010 data, when there were 37 task force agreements in 18 states — found that task forces generated far fewer arrests than automated fingerprint scanning in local jails.
Some advocates warn that the programs could lead to civil rights violations — and litigation.
“They’re going to stop somebody for a routine traffic violation or loitering and ask about immigration status,” said Thomas Kennedy, a policy consultant for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, which represents 83 immigrant advocacy groups in the state. “That’s bad for civil rights, it’s bad for our community, for trust between law enforcement and the community, for the reporting of crimes. But it also exposes municipalities and police departments to litigation.”
But Tom Homann, Trump’s border czar, has told law enforcement agencies not to worry.
At a February conference in Washington, D.C., Homan told sheriffs he’s working to lower costs for their participation by cutting the training period for deputies from four weeks to about one week, and lowering legal liability costs with what he called “full-scale indemnification.” “If you get sued, the department [of Homeland Security] will help you out and defend you,” he said, getting applause from sheriffs in the audience.