The Resurgence of 287(g): New Data and Theories on America's Most Controversial Immigration Enforcement Policy

Keywords: asylum, border, migrant protection protocols, Trump
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 30

Abstract

The 287(g) program was created to enable local law enforcement agencies to participate in immigration enforcement, which has traditionally been restricted to federal immigration officers. Although written into immigration reforms in the 1990s, section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) went largely unused until the late 2000s, when the Department of Homeland Security under the Bush and Obama administrations dramatically expanded the program to dozens of jurisdictions, mostly in the US Southeast. Due, in part, to waves of criticism and lawsuits, the program was gradually curtailed, and by the end of the Obama administration, no new 287(g) agreements were being approved. This, along with the rise in interoperability and data sharing between local law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), signaled that 287(g), once the tip of the spear of immigration enforcement policy, was in slow decline. However, the Trump administration revived the program, signing dozens of new 287(g) agreements. Eventually, the total number of active 287(g) agreements would far exceed the previous totals of the Obama administration. In this paper, we trace the ‘death and life’ of 287(g) agreements over the past decade, focusing particularly on the surge of new 287(g) agreements during the Trump administration in Florida, in order to examine the underlying local political and legal rationales behind fluctuations in these policies and to assess whether these policies have, in recent years, actually resulted in great enforcement activity or whether the policies are merely part of performative, electoral strategies of county sheriffs.