You've probably seen the clips on social media: black windbreakers, guns, masks— a stereotypical U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in 2025 . Yet the real growth engine of immigration arrests under the second Trump administration looks nothing like that. It looks like paperwork—hundreds of local memoranda under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. In plain English, 287(g) lets ICE sign agreements that deputize local officers—after ICE training—to perform specific federal immigration duties: serving detainers, preparing immigration charging documents, even making field arrests under ICE supervision (the "Task Force” model), as well as jailhouse screening and warrant service. That is fueling the surge.

The Department of Homeland Security says the country signe

See Full Page