The Brief

The use of a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that deputizes local police for immigration enforcement has dramatically expanded under President Donald Trump's second term in office.

The rapid expansion of the 287(g) program marks one of the most visible shifts in President Trump's second-term immigration strategy.

On Trump's first day he signed the executive order, "Protecting the American People from Invasion," which called on the DHS secretary to maximize the use of 287(g) agreements and to structure them "in the manner that provides the most effective model for enforcing Federal immigration laws."

The results have been swift.

In 2019, during Trump's first term, just 45 of these 287(g) agreements were signed, available data shows. As of Feb. 13, ICE reported 1,412 active agreements across 40 states and territories — more than 1,130 of them signed in 2025 alone.

(DHS did not provide data prior to 2019 or between 2020 and 2025. NPR has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for this information).

Gauging the effectiveness of 287(g) programs

The program, established in 1996, allows state and local law enforcement officers to act as immigration enforcement agents. That means questioning, investigating, and in some cases arresting people for civil immigration violations – authority traditionally reserved for federal officers.

The program existed under previous Democratic and Republican administrations, but never to the extent that the Trump administration is using it now, immigration experts and people who worked during previous presidential administrations tell NPR.

The White House is using 287(g) agreements as "a tailor-made tool" for the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda, said Doris Meissner, who led the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the agency that predated DHS, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol) under President Bill Clinton.

"There has never been the kind of whole-government mobilizing around immigration that we're currently seeing," Meissner said. Trump's approach is "putting 287(g) agreements on steroids," she added.

How effective it's been is another question.

In a response to NPR's questions, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said that these partnerships serve as critical resources to "arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country" and make the U.S. safer.

However, available data is hard to parse and it's unclear what arrests, detentions or deportations can be credited to this program.

DHS said there were more than 675,000 deportations as of January 2026 in Trump's first year back in office because of the administration's crackdown on immigration.

The Trump administration believes these partnerships are fruitful, with DHS pointing to operations in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has effectively required local law enforcement to sign 287(g) agreements with ICE, which netted 40,000 arrests. And in West Virginia, more than 650 "illegal aliens" were arrested over a two-week operation, according to McLaughlin.

How does the program work?

There are three main 287(g) models:

• The jail enforcement model: Every person that comes into a local jail, with criminal convictions or pending charges, will be checked for whether or not they have legal status in the United States. If they are found to be in the country illegally, ICE will be notified and they will be held in jail, pending ICE removal. 
• The warrant service officer model: Similar to the jail enforcement model, where local police are trained to serve and execute administrative warrants on migrants in their local jails. 
• The task force model: Officers can stop, question and make arrests for immigration violations. DHS says an officer, "with approval from an ICE supervisor, conducts an ICE arrest for immigration violations and transfers the alien to an approved location."
  

(There's a fourth model: The tribal task force, but there is no recorded agreement signed and recorded in available ICE data.)

Task force models make up the majority of 287(g) agreements in place, according to ICE data. DHS describes it as giving officers "limited authority to enforce immigration laws during their routine police duties throughout their local communities in a non-custodial environment with ICE supervision."

Local police agencies sign a memorandum of agreement with ICE and nominate officers to participate in the program who then get training by ICE.

DHS told NPR that training for the task force model consists of 40 hours of education on topics that include immigration law, ICE's Use of Force policy, civil rights law, alien detention and public outreach. In the past, it took about a month of training for local cops to be certified.

Critics have long warned that these deals drain local resources and heighten the risk of racial profiling and civil rights violations by pulling ill-equipped local police into complex immigration law.

Annie Lai, an immigration law professor at University of California Irvine says, "The potential for civil rights violations is acute," including for racial profiling. It also leaves cities and towns exposed to costly legal battles.

Lai was involved in a major civil rights lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed in 2007, while Bush was still president, over a pattern of unlawful practices by the sheriff and his agency during immigration sweeps and traffic stops, which occurred while the agency was involved in a 287(g) partnership with ICE. Litigation against Arpaio has cost local taxpayers millions. 

There have been a number of lawsuits over the years filed by people detained in local jails under this program – some for longer than they should have been incarcerated while awaiting ICE agents, NPR has previously reported.

McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, rejected these criticisms: "Allegations that 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement encourage 'racial profiling' are disgusting and categorically FALSE. Our 287(g) partners work with us to enforce federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice, and they should be commended for doing so."

To incentivize cooperation, ICE is offering full reimbursements for participating agencies for the annual salary and benefits of each eligible trained 287(g) officer, including overtime coverage up to 25% of the officer's annual salary. Funding for these costs was made possible through Trump's Big Beautiful Bill.

Law enforcement agencies will also be eligible for quarterly monetary performance awards "based on the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance to further ICE's mission," DHS said.

Performance goals for participating agencies have not been made clear– an issue the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted in two separate reports from 2009 and 2021.

The GAO said the 287(g) program could use better oversight. Recommendations from the 2021 report that called on the director of ICE to create those performance metrics had yet to be met as of 2025.

How previous administrations used 287(g)

While its dramatic expansion is new, the 287(g) dates back nearly 30 years to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).

DHS didn't respond to NPR's request for data on the number of 287(g) agreements signed with local law enforcement under the administrations of Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton.

However, those who worked under these administrations say 287(g) agreements were narrowly used and never reached the level under Trump's current administration.

The original goal of the 1996 law, enacted during the "tough on crime" era, was to help federal authorities identify and remove dangerous criminals, according to John Torres, who worked in immigration enforcement for close to 30 years – first under President Ronald Reagan, eventually moving up the ranks under subsequent administrations, including a stint as acting director of ICE during the transition from President George W. Bush to President Obama.

Meissner, who led the INS under President Clinton, said the White House initially opposed the 287(g) provision because immigration enforcement had long been considered exclusively a federal responsibility. Delegating that authority to state and local police "was not something that was in the playbook," she said.

But the administration ultimately did not block it after hearing from communities grappling with deadly human smuggling cases that local law enforcement struggled to address, Meissner explained to NPR.

Clinton left office in January 2001 and, as far as Meissner recalls, no 287(g) agreements were ever signed. She said local leaders expressed concerns over the potential cost to local taxpayers and the legal liability for small police offices.

September 11th, and the Bush administration, changed everything.

By the mid-2000s, the Bush White House prioritized jail enforcement and task force models of 287(g), Torres recalled.

"We signed a lot of agreements under President Bush," he said.

Under Obama's presidency, more people were deported than any other president in U.S. history and the jail enforcement model was an important aspect to that work, according to John Sandweg, who worked at DHS under Obama.

The Obama administration, for a time, used 287(g) to go after people convicted of serious crimes, but found these partnerships did not help all that much, according to Sandweg.

But by 2012, the Obama administration suspended all 287(g) task force models, following documented civil rights abuses like the cases involving Arpaio's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona.

"Maybe once in a blue moon you come across someone with a serious criminal history," he explained. "But by and large, what you were getting were individuals who are just undocumented, and maybe they're pulled over for different reasons."

The program was underutilized, but left largely intact under the Biden administration, despite campaign promises to end 287(g) agreements and much to the chagrin of civil rights groups such as the ACLU.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 21, 2025.

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How President Trump is using them

Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, says concerns over civil rights violations under 287(g) are overblown.

"I honestly don't think that the lawsuits and the activism is driven by facts on the ground. It's driven by ideology," he said, referring to protests against the program and local police involvement in immigration enforcement.

"I'm not saying that there has never been an instance of an officer from DHS or law enforcement doing something they shouldn't. It happens, but it's pretty rare," he added.

The 287(g) program offers an important tool for communities deep in the U.S., away from the border, where enforcement "is much more complicated," Hankinson said. That's where "the Trump administration has been battling uphill against severe headwinds," he said.

The Trump administration touts 287(g) as a way to go after violent criminals in the U.S. illegally.

With that goal in mind, Sandweg said "expanding the 287(g) program makes tremendous sense for [the Trump administration], in that it's a force multiplier, and it increases the number of people who are legally capable of arresting undocumented immigrants dramatically."

McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, maintains that "ICE is targeting criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and more. Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S."

But the Trump administration has been criticized for arresting U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents and sometimes keeping them incarcerated for days. Records show that many of the people being caught in Trump's enforcement dragnet have no criminal record.

Even as the Trump administration moves to expand 287(g), some states are pushing back.

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger issued an executive order terminating 287(g) agreements between ICE and state agencies, which included the Virginia Department of Corrections.

In Maryland, a bill that could end these partnerships was headed to Gov. Wes Moore's desk, as of Monday afternoon. That bill would prevent state agencies and employees from entering into 287(g) agreements and would end all existing deals by July.

Under the second Trump administration, partnerships between ICE and local law enforcement agencies that delegate immigration enforcement authority to local officers has expanded widely.
Copyright 2026 NPR

It’s that time of year when black bears are beefing up, often on trash, in Southern California’s foothill communities.

From fall to early winter, bears quadruple their food intake in preparation for the cooler months — bears here don’t really hibernate given our mild weather and plethora of resources, but they do slow down during the winter (as we all should). And right now, mother bears are looking to find a safe place to den and have their cubs.

Bears aren’t just roaming the roads of mountain towns either. They’re in suburban neighborhood streets along the 210 Freeway corridor — including Altadena, Sierra Madre and Monrovia — and even in Encino and Tarzana.

A black bear walks along an Arcadia street earlier this month.

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This time of year is when humans and bears might come into conflict more frequently, says a former biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“You're going to see those bears just eating ravenously, foraging all day for food, and then also they're going to start looking for these potential denning sites under our crawl spaces, unfortunately,” said Jessica West, a human-wildlife conflict specialist who over the last five years worked for the state on bear coexistence efforts from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Nearly 60,000 black bears are estimated to live in California. Here in Southern California, the estimate is around 2,000, according to the latest count by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

State resources to help communities coexist with bears have been cut. That includes West, who was the sole wildlife conflict biologist serving Southern California counties. Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a bill into law that aims to bring some of those resources back, but in the meantime, the need remains.

“More than ever, people and bears are sharing space,” West said.  "The fact is that they're here and they're not going anywhere, and we're here as humans and we're not going anywhere.”

Neither did West’s passion for wildlife coexistence when she was laid off. That’s why she just launched her own business to help fill the resource gap: Wild Neighbor.

Jessica West, a bear biologist, installs an "unwelcome" mat at a home. The electrified mat helps keeps curious bears away.

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Courtesy Wild Neighbor

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An "unwelcome" mat with bear prints outside of a home in Ojai.

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She offers detailed property assessments and recommendations for $150. She focuses primarily on prevention, such as strategically placing electric wiring and “unwelcome” mats to secure crawl spaces, trash and other vulnerable areas, which can cost $350 to around $900 depending on the home. She also rents such equipment if residents prefer. West works with manufacturers of electric bear-resistant tools that have been vetted for fire safety and bear conflict.

“We really want to avoid potentially orphaning those cubs,” she said.

It’s best to avoid allowing a bear to get into your crawl space or trash in the first place, West said. When bears become too accustomed to humans and eating human food, the risk of injury to people and pets rises. And the bears themselves are more likely to be euthanized.

In 2023, California hit a tragic milestone: It was the state’s first documented killing of a human by a black bear, in Northern California. In Southern California, foothill communities such as Sierra Madre have seen several bear-related injuries in recent years (more on that in our 2024 podcast on this topic). Several bears, including a well-known one in La Cañada Flintridge, have also been euthanized in recent years.

In the vast majority of cases, this is preventable, West said, if residents take a little responsibility for securing their own properties. That can also save thousands of dollars in damage caused by a bear.

Since West is no longer with the state, she can’t trap bears that have risen to the point of becoming a problem — for example, those that learn how to regularly get into homes or cars, or have lost their fear of humans. She does encourage her clients to share sightings and any concerning conflicts with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, but she doesn’t share anything herself without clients’ permission. (Learn how to report bear sightings or human-bear conflict here.)

West said that in lieu of state resources, companies like hers may become more common.

“What [clients] can expect is someone who is going to listen to them, and someone who is passionate about their job and really wants to help them,” West said. “Because at the end of the day, I'm a bear biologist by training. I love bears, but my whole goal in all of this is to help people. Because if we help people, we're also helping bears.”

City inspectors have declared several buildings on the Peninsula unsafe to enter after Hurricane Rachel’s high surf and tides chewed away at the shoreline, tearing apart a section of a wooden wall that is the neighborhood’s last line of defense against the ocean.

Officials issued a notice Thursday night that a large section of the bulkhead, left exposed after waves from Hurricane Marie ripped away its surrounding sand, was badly damaged over the past day and left a gap that allowed water to reach homes and side streets.

Residents stood in shin-deep flooding on Friday, with vehicle access closed at 62nd Place. Waves continued to chew at homes’ foundations along the shoreline and tear planks from the boardwalk. At least one home in the 6500 block of Seaside Walk appeared close to collapse.

Laath Martin, a city spokesperson, said inspectors are still assessing the extent of the bulkhead and boardwalk damage.

Crews rushed to make emergency repairs, pump water off the streets and fill in the exposed section with roughly 1,000 sandbags. The city is bracing for rain this weekend, and more high tides and surf are expected.

Inspectors surveyed homes threatened by water damage and red-tagged two buildings containing three units in the 6400 and 6500 blocks of Seaside Walk. The red tag means they’re too dangerous to enter.

Craig Nakano, a spokesperson for the city’s Community Development Department, said Friday that nobody has been displaced by the tagging. One property was under construction, he said, while the other was confirmed by the owner to be vacant.

A young man talks with an employee helping pump water out of the street as high surf from Hurricane Rachel crashes into the Peninsula in Long Beach on Friday, October 9, 2026.

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A third building received a yellow tag, which means its owner may go in briefly to collect belongings but may not stay. Nakano confirmed that the owner had already found somewhere else to stay.

Two buildings were already yellow-tagged after damage from Hurricane Marie weeks ago. The latest damage brings the total to five damaged Peninsula structures, two red-tagged and three yellow-tagged. The tags are preliminary, and a red tag can be downgraded to yellow once repairs are made and inspectors sign off. Inspectors will keep checking homes twice a day.

The latest bout of strong waves — whipped up by Hurricane Rachel — came just weeks after other hurricane-charged swells battered the Long Beach coast and the Peninsula.

The city is planning a multimillion-dollar dredging project to rebuild the stretch of Peninsula beach that’s been eroded. Long-term fixes are expected to be even more expensive.

In the meantime, storms keep rolling in.

The forecast for this weekend

Bryan Lewis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said high surf and tide are expected to rise precipitously each day through Sunday, with tides reaching 7.5 feet high on Saturday and nearly 8 feet high on Sunday morning around 10 a.m. Waves are currently ranging from 4 to 7 feet high, but are expected to rise to up to 8 feet by Sunday, he said.

Conditions on Sunday evening and Monday morning, he said, will mirror Saturday, and likely will not relent in strength until Wednesday morning.

The NWS expects to announce a flood warning later Friday. They currently have an advisory running through Tuesday. Warnings are usually triggered when coastal buoys the Service monitors — in this case ones in the San Pedro Channel and city harbor — are routinely hit with high enough surf, Lewis explained.

This storm could also bring rain and wind. The city expects up to a half-inch of precipitation this weekend and gusts strong enough to knock down trees and power lines.

“Protecting our residents is our top priority as high surf and erosion impact our Peninsula community,” Mayor Rex Richardson said in a statement. He praised emergency crews and urged residents to “be prepared and follow City guidance.”

Lewis said rain showers could start in the area as early as Friday night and Saturday morning, with a second storm system hitting the area on Monday. Showers are expected to total between a half inch and three quarters of an inch of rain.

“This will bring additional rain, so that’s kind of separate from what tropical storm Rachel could be responsible for,” Lewis said.

Metrolink, Southern California’s regional commuter rail service, is planning for major service cuts — slashing 29% of weekday trains and 40% of weekend trains. Those cuts could go into effect as soon as next month.

The Metrolink Board of Directors on Friday voted to move forward with a $420 million budget proposal for this fiscal year, which includes the service cuts. The proposal now goes to member agencies for review and approval.

A majority of Metrolink’s budget is funded by Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties’ transportation agencies. For more than a year, Metrolink officials have been building a budget that member agencies, like the Orange County Transportation Authority and L.A. Metro, would approve as it struggles to close its funding gaps.

How did we get here? 

The service announcement comes the same week as the agency rolled out fare increases.

Metrolink officials blame low ridership numbers for the budget troubles and increasing operational costs for the potential change in service.

The agency expects an 18% dip in ticket revenue in the next fiscal year. On top of that, both OCTA and L.A. Metro proposed cutting their subsidies to the rail service by millions of dollars.

Tom Schamber, Metrolink's chief financial officer, said the service cuts were necessary to balance the budget.

“These cuts were targeted at low-performing trains and trains that overlap with the Pacific Surfliner service,” Schamber said. “The schedule will look more like a commuter rail service focused on weekdays during peak periods.”

How could my routes change?

In Orange County, the number of weekend trains will be cut in half and weekday trains by nearly 40%. Weekday service to Oceanside is included in those cuts.

San Bernardino and Antelope Valley lines will also see major service cuts to weekday and weekend trains. Weekday trains for the Ventura County line were cut by 36%.

You can see the proposed service schedule here.

What do some riders think? 

During public comment on Friday, many riders expressed concern that Metrolink was entering a transit death spiral — a slippery cycle where fewer services and higher fares lead to fewer riders and deeper financial trouble.

Cooper Crane, a UC Riverside graduate student and historian of Southern California’s public transportation network, said the cuts make the service impractical.

“It is going to bring Metrolink into a death spiral, which could be compared to the historic collapse of services such as the Pacific Electric here in Southern California,” Crane said. “We don't want to experience something like the collapse of the Pacific Electric again, but the budget cuts that have been made by Orange County and the lack of government commitment to the support for the service is pretty much exactly what that will lead to.”

Mason Buck of Irvine said he mainly uses the Metrolink services recreationally.

“You can understand my concern when I look, and I see weekend service getting absolutely gutted in Orange County. … Issues like this are extremely frustrating to me because it feels like such a self-inflicted wound,” Buck said. “I just want an alternative to driving.”

The changes will not just stunt ridership growth but exacerbate ridership loss, Adriana Rizzo, a founding member of Californians for Electric Rail, said.

“This is going to be a net negative for Metrolink. I'm very concerned that we're going to be back here in six months, looking at even more severe cuts,” Rizzo said. “Metrolink is essential for the economy. It's essential to keep our region moving, and we cannot just let it die.”

What’s next?

County transportation agencies need to consider and adopt the budget before it goes back to the Metrolink board for final approval on Oct. 23.