The Trump administration is directing $1.6 billion through September 2027 toward partnerships between federal immigration authorities and state and local police, a dramatic increase from previous funding levels for the program known as 287(g).
The money, authorized through the 2025 reconciliation law, fully funds the program according to the Department of Homeland Security. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has outlined plans to spend $100 million in the last fiscal year, $575 million this fiscal year, and $475 million in fiscal 2027 on detention and removal operations carried out under these agreements. DHS’s Office of the Secretary and Executive Management has separately spent $460 million this fiscal year on personnel assignments tied to the program.
Virginia Representative Ben Cline credited the funding boost with restoring a partnership he says had eroded under previous state leadership. “Our communities are safer when local and state law enforcement cooperate with federal immigration officers,” Cline said. “I have been sounding the alarm on Democrat leaders dismantling the 287(g) partnership. Thank you, @POTUS, for your continued commitment to restoring law and order and keeping Virginians safe.”
The 287(g) program allows ICE to delegate certain federal immigration enforcement powers to local police. Its fastest-growing component, the Task Force Model, authorizes officers to detain and arrest individuals they suspect are living in the country without legal status.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin described the arrangement in stark terms during a June press conference. “We say to the local law enforcement and the state law enforcement … ‘If you run across these individuals, keep them,'” he said. “‘We will pay for your time and some of the equipment, just hold them and we will come pick them up.'”
Monthly arrests under the program climbed from 301 in January 2025 to 3,388 in January 2026, before dropping to 2,630 in February. Participation has grown just as sharply — the number of agreements has increased more than 1,470% since January 2025, according to an analysis by FWD.us, an organization that opposes the police-ICE partnerships. Of the 2,179 partnerships currently in place, 67% permit street-level immigration enforcement. ICE has advertised $7,500 per trained officer for equipment, $100,000 per partnership for new vehicles, and reimbursement for salaries, benefits, and overtime.
Felicity Rose, the group’s vice president of criminal justice research and policy, said the rapid growth deserves scrutiny. “It’s really important to be thinking about the effects on immigrants, but also the effects on local communities and citizens in the U.S. to all of this new money pouring in with very little oversight,” she said.
The funding marks a sharp departure from history. During Trump’s first term, agreements grew from 35 to 150, but annual funding stayed flat at $24.3 million despite ICE’s requests for more. The program’s previous funding peak was $68 million under President Barack Obama, whose administration later dropped funding to $24.3 million and discontinued the Task Force Model following findings of civil-rights abuses, including racial targeting by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona.
Participation does not always translate into activity. In Florida, 109 of 274 agencies signed up for Task Force Model agreements had made no arrests as of June, according to state law enforcement data — a gap that could shape how the new funding is ultimately distributed as the program expands through 2027.
