Immigration experts and law enforcement officials have widely agreed that dramatically ramping up deportations in line with President Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric is logistically difficult — if not impossible — to accomplish in Nevada. 

But in recent weeks, Trump has pushed to add more manpower by expanding a controversial program, known as 287(g), that trains local law officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation. The force-multiplying program could be key in expanding immigration enforcement capacity as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) faces staffing shortages. 

Nevada has two active 287(g) agreements, according to ICE, and several jurisdictions in the Silver State previously did. Since Trump has stepped back into office, dozens of such memorandums of understandings (MOUs) have been signed from Texas to Florida, reversing a decline in the program during President Joe Biden’s administration. Nevadans — immigrant and non-immigrant alike — have expressed concerns about potential police collaboration with ICE. 

We explain the controversial policy and what police collaboration with ICE looks like in Nevada. 

What is 287(g)?

The 287(g) program — named for the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that defines it — was created under President Bill Clinton’s administration as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, enabling ICE to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies that can perform some of the duties of immigration officers. 

As of 2025, 360 law enforcement agencies nationwide have agreements under 287(g), according to the latest data from ICE. The number of agreements decreased significantly toward the end of President Barack Obama’s administration and jumped back up during Trump’s first term, with the number of MOUs increasing from 35 to 150 — 300 percent — from 2017 to 2020. 

As of December 2024, ICE had 287(g) agreements with 135 state or local law enforcement agencies across 21 states. That number shot up to over 300 as of this March.

Three types of 287(g) agreements are in use: the “jail enforcement” model, the “warrant service officer” model, and the “task force” model, which was discontinued in 2012 but revived under Trump this year. 

Under the jail enforcement model, deputized local police officers may interrogate suspected noncitizens who have been arrested on state or local charges to determine their immigration status. Local officers may also serve and execute immigration detainers — administrative requests from ICE to hold noncitizens for as long as 48 hours after they would otherwise be released, allowing time for ICE officers to pick a suspected noncitizen up and transport them to an immigration detention center.

Some immigration policy groups have dubbed the warrant service model “287(g)-lite.” Under that model, police officers are permitted to execute ICE administrative warrants within their agency’s jails, but unlike the jail enforcement model, are not allowed to interrogate noncitizens about their immigration status. They can identify people as foreign-born during the booking process. 

Lastly, the task force model allows officers who are carrying out their daily activities in the field to question and arrest suspected noncitizens who they believe violated immigration law.

What are the pros and cons of the program?

ICE has contended that the 287(g) program is a “tremendous benefit to public safety” by enabling local and federal officers to work together in removing undocumented people convicted of crimes. 

According to ICE, the program “continues to receive overwhelmingly positive feedback from its partners.”

But the program has received backlash from civil rights and pro-immigrant groups that say it contributes to racial profiling and brings life-altering consequences — such as deportation — for people arrested for nonviolent crimes.

Multiple studies have found that cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE can lead to immigrant communities reporting fewer crimes to local police. One 2018 survey of Mexican undocumented residents in San Diego County found that nearly 61 percent were less likely to report a crime they witnessed and about 43 percent were less likely to report being a victim of a crime if they thought local officers were collaborating with ICE.

A 2023 study from Penn State also found that the probability of a Latino individual being a victim of a violent crime rose by 111 percent if they lived in an area with an active 287(g) program. 

Multiple Department of Justice investigations have found examples of racial profiling and “sweeps” of majority-Latino neighborhoods in jurisdictions where there were such agreements. The 287(g) agreements in those cases were terminated.

ICE says that racial profiling will not be tolerated and that such instances will be fully investigated.

Does Nevada have active 287(g) programs?

According to the ICE website, Douglas County signed two 287(g) agreements under the warrant service model and task force model with ICE in February, making it the first jurisdiction in Nevada to join the program in years.  

But shortly after, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office published a press release indicating the agency has not, as the ICE website reflected, adopted the task force model and will not be conducting immigration enforcement in the field — a discrepancy The Nevada Independent is investigating. The ICE website was updated about a week later to say Douglas County only has a warrant service model agreement. 

According to the ICE website, Mineral County has an active warrant service officer agreement and pending task force model agreement as of early March. 

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) and ICE previously had a 287(g) agreement that ended in 2019 under then-Sheriff Joe Lombardo. The program was suspended after a federal district court ruled that ICE detainers could only be honored in states with laws that specifically address civil immigration arrests.

It was later reported, however, that after the agreement ended, Metro — under Lombardo's direction — helped ICE agents arrest potentially hundreds of undocumented immigrants who were not in jail for violent offenses. 

Lyon and Nye counties previously also had 287(g) agreements, although it is not clear when they ended; neither agency returned requests for comment. Nye County last had an MOU in 2020.

Do local police in Nevada enforce immigration laws?

LVMPD and Henderson police — two of the largest police departments in the state — have said they will not help federal agencies actually carry out deportation efforts, although they still share information with ICE.

• “Although Nevada peace officers have the authority to assist in enforcing federal laws, LVMPD officers will not enforce immigration violations,” Metro said in a statement on Jan. 31, 2025.
  • However “when a foreign-born individual is arrested and charged with a violent felony, domestic violence, DUI, burglary, theft, larceny, petit larceny, and/or assault of a law enforcement officer the Detention Services Division will notify ICE at both booking and release,” according to the Metro statement. 
  • LVMPD also said it “will share criminal intelligence regarding transnational organized crime and international terrorism with any and all law enforcement agencies to include ICE.” 
• Henderson Police told The Nevada Independent in a statement that ​​”the Henderson Police Department is not assisting, nor have we been asked to assist any federal agencies with field operations pertaining to deportations.”
  • “HDC (Henderson Detention Center) notifies ICE regardless of their charges. ICE then determines whether they wish to detain the individual at HDC.”
  • The Henderson Detention Center is also an ICE holding facility.
• Other police departments have been more receptive to collaboration with ICE.
  • Lyon County said that it “will cooperate with our partnering Federal Agencies in immigration enforcement matters and events.”
    • “If an arrestee is brought into a detention facility of the Lyon County Sheriff's Office and found to be an illegal alien, notification will be sent to the proper federal agency,” according to a statement. 
    • It added that “patrol deputies will not make arrests based on immigration status.” 
  • “Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of federal agencies,” Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said in a statement. “If a specific request is made by ICE or another federal agency, we will provide support services as required during their operations.”
  • The Reno Police Department took a similar stance, only assisting ICE investigations upon approved requests.
    • They will “Cooperat[e] and assist ICE with its investigations, in an officer safety capacity, when requested. When ICE requests assistance with immigration operations, approval must be received from the Chief of Police,” according to internal policy.  
  • Douglas County said in a late February press release that it will only operate under the 287(g) warrant service office model where “designated officers are granted legal authority to execute civil immigration warrants within our detention facilities.”
    • It said it will not “conduct immigration enforcement operations such as ‘immigration sweeps’” nor “stop or question individuals solely to determine their immigration status.”

What has Trump said about requiring local police to help in his immigration agenda? 

In late January, Trump ordered the Department of Justice to investigate local and state officials who are not following his immigration agenda and potentially challenge them in court. 

The Trump administration has sued multiple jurisdictions for not complying with his immigration orders. In early February, the Trump administration sued Chicago and the state of Illinois, which have some of the strongest immigration protections, for “affirmatively thwarting” federal immigration laws.

But many cities and towns have shrugged off Trump’s immigration directives. While federal law permits state and local agencies to cooperate with immigration enforcement, it does not require them to do so. The 10th Amendment also prohibits the federal government from forcing local agencies to enforce immigration laws, according to the New York State Attorney General’s Office.  

Has the Legislature tried to limit use of local police for immigration objectives?

Legislation seeking to limit the use of local police for immigration enforcement has been on the table in prior sessions, but policymakers and advocates aren’t confident that such proposals will reemerge this session. 

Assm. Selena Torres-Fossett (D-Las Vegas), who has previously sponsored legislation that would have blocked collaboration between ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies, said that she “doesn’t see” any such bills at the time, but would support such legislation if it arose. She pointed to a bill from Assm. Cecelia González (D-Las Vegas) that would ban immigration officials from school facilities. 

In 2017, lawmakers also considered a bill that would have barred law enforcement from participating in federal immigration activities without a judicial warrant, but it almost immediately received backlash from police and Republican lawmakers. 

Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said that he thinks that policies limiting 287(g) agreements are unrealistic at the state level. Given that Lombardo has backed parts of Trump’s immigration agenda, he does not expect that if such legislation were revived, it would become law. 

“The political reality is that it is unlikely to happen with our current governor,” Haseebullah said. 

Haseebullah said that he believes that it is more likely that protections are implemented at the local level. 

Individual Nevada police municipalities, for example, have put out resolutions promising they won't help ICE with field operations.

What have immigration advocates said?

Haseebullah said he does not believe that Nevada should be cooperating with ICE in any capacity. 

Yet, he has concerns that the informal resolutions local police departments have been issuing about their positions on helping with immigration enforcement are even less transparent than 287(g) agreements. Even without a written agreement, he is worried that local law enforcement can act as if they have a partnership with ICE.

“This nefarious backing of ‘cooperation’ is actually even worse. What's ended up happening is none of the policies were made clear,” he said.