Immigration

Report: deputized local officers now outnumber ICE's own deportation force more than two-to-one

United States • October 28, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

Editorial illustration: police vehicles along a highway at dusk during a traffic stop

Editorial illustration — Press Pass USA

More than 29,000 state and local law enforcement officers are now deputized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — roughly double the count in February and more than twice the roughly 11,600 deportation officers ICE employs directly, according to a new analysis by the immigration-reform advocacy group FWD.us, reported Wednesday by NPR.

The officers serve through ICE's 287(g) program, named for a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that lets the agency delegate immigration powers to state and local police. The analysis, which draws on ICE's public records and data requested by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA, found that most of the growth comes through the program's Task Force Model, which the Trump administration revived on January 20, 2025. Under that model, local officers can stop drivers or pedestrians, ask about immigration status, and hand people over to ICE during routine patrol work.

As of October 1, more than 1,850 agencies in 30 states and two U.S. territories had enrolled, the analysis found. Deputized officers made more than 47,000 immigration arrests between January 2025 and early August 2026, with monthly totals climbing from about 300 at the start of that period to 6,632 in July 2026. From May through July, the program accounted for 14 to 15 percent of all ICE arrests, up from 2.5 percent in January 2025. Florida, with more than 15,000 arrests, and Texas, with about 9,000, together produced roughly half the national total.

FWD.us vice president of research and policy Felicity Rose told NPR the officers are “a key lever in the administration's quieter approach to enforcement,” trading high-profile urban surges for routine highway stops. The Department of Homeland Security has said 287(g) is a critical tool to cut down on crime and illegal immigration. FWD.us also projects that participating agencies are eligible for at least $2 billion in program funding through fiscal year 2026, including stipends of $60,000 per deputized officer per year — a projection from the advocacy group, not a federal spending announcement.

Sources: NPR (Oct 28, 2026); FWD.us 287(g) report (Oct 28, 2026); Newsmax, reporting NPR (Oct 28, 2026).