As federal agents move through Mississippi, a handful of local law enforcement agencies and jails are offering assistance through agreements to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

“We’re assuming, until we find out differently, that our local sheriffs and police are, at a minimum, communicating and perhaps sharing information with ICE,” said Lea Campbell, a member of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Mutual Aid Collective, a community advocacy group. 

The agency has several types of agreements and contracts with local, county and state law enforcement, including identifying those in violation of immigration laws in jails and assisting in arrests. Another agreement, in place for several years in Madison and Hancock counties,  enables local jurisdictions to serve as holding facilities for detainees,

Four sheriff’s departments and two state offices already have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, giving them some immigration enforcement abilities through collaboration with ICE. 

The Department of Public Safety has a pending agreement in Hinds County. 

Bailey Holloway, spokesperson for the department, said officers from the Mississippi Highway Patrol,  Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and the Commercial Transportation Enforcement Division will partner with ICE to identify people suspected to be in the country without legal authorization who are not charged with crimes. She also said the DPS officers will exercise limited immigration authority on ICE-led task forces. 

“The Mississippi Department of Public Safety will work in full cooperation with our federal partners to assist in enforcing immigration laws and removing individuals who are in the country unlawfully, ensuring the safety of our communities,” she wrote in a Thursday email. 

Under the 287(g) program, there are three models: jail enforcement, warrant service officer and task force. The first two allow people to identify suspected immigrants ina jail and to make civil administrative arrests on behalf of ICE in the jail. 

Agencies can have more than one model. Those who have a 287(g) agreement are:

• Jail enforcement model: the sheriff’s departments in Harrison, Monroe and Stone counties
• Warrant service officer model: the sheriff’s departments in Harrison, Lauderdale and Stone counties
• Task force model: attorney general’s office, state auditor’s office, Stone County Sheriff’s Department

Lauderdale County Sheriff Ward Calhoun said he saw the agreement as an opportunity to help federal partners including ICE and help process immigration cases. 

With the jail warrant service program, Calhoun said up to five deputies who work in the detention center will be trained to serve administrative warrants. He called this department’s role in immigration enforcement minor and clerical. 

When asked if the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department would be interested in expanding to the different 287(g) models, Calhoun said that is not likely. 

“We just don’t think there’s that many individuals in the community that we’re aware of who are here illegally, so I don’t see a need for us to do anything any differently,” he said. 

Calhoun estimated that within the past three years, the sheriff’s office has been asked a dozen times a year to hold someone in its jail until ICE can pick them up.  

The task force model allows officers to enforce civil immigration law on the street when working with the agency. 

State Auditor Shad White said two agents from his office volunteered to be trained in immigration law enforcement and assist ICE in whatever way they can. 

“ICE agents and the Trump administration are working hard to stop illegal immigration, and they need every law enforcement officer willing to assist in their corner,” White said in a September statement. 

The first Mississippi agency to sign a 287(g) agreement was the attorney general’s office earlier this year. 

These agreements aren’t new but have exploded under President Donald Trump from 80 in 2010 to hundreds this year, Austin Kocher, an associate professor at Syracuse University who researches the immigration enforcement system, wrote in a Journalist’s Resource post. 

As of Dec. 9, over 1,200 active 287(g) memorandums are in force in 39 states and one U.S. territory, with another eight pending agreements, according to ICE. 

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement signed the first 287(g) agreement in 2002 under President George W. Bush, Kocher writes. President Barack Obama ended the task force model, partly due to lawsuits and Justice Department investigations that showed problems with its implementation. 

During his first administration, Trump expanded the 287(g) program and saw a large increase in participation, according to Kocher. President Joe Biden’s administration preserved some existing agreements but decided to halt new ones.  

Kocher wrote that this year during Trump’s second administration, the president issued an executive order to “aggressively – yet quietly – (expand)” 287(g) agreements. The administration is also reimbursing participating law enforcement agencies through the “Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Kocher wrote that part of the explosion of new 287(g) agreements is driven by the revival of the task force model. He also noted more types of agencies are signing the agreements, such as the Mississippi attorney general’s office, financial service departments and fish and wildlife agencies. 

Existing holding agreements with Madison and Hancock counties reflect the recent surge in ICE activities.

As of Tuesday, online booking records for the jail list four people charged with violation of federal immigration law being held for ICE in Madison. Dozens were held there days after the inauguration of Trump and announcement of mass deportations. 

Through intergovernmental service agreements, ICE pays jails and prisons to hold the agency’s detainees in their facilities. Sometimes the jails hold them temporarily until they are sent to more permanent ICE detention facilities. In Mississippi, these detainees typically go to the Adams County Detention Center in Natchez or facilities in Louisiana. 

The Hancock County Sheriff’s Department has had its agreement with ICE since at least 2020, and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department has had an agreement with ICE since 2018 and one with the U.S. Marshal’s Service since at least 2016. 

The jails hold ICE’s administrative detainees, which are people not charged with criminal violations,  according to language from Hancock County’s agreement. These are those in custody to ensure their presence through the immigration hearing process and until an immigration court or other judicial body decides whether they can stay in the country or be removed,

Last week, federal immigration agents arrived in New Orleans for “Operation Catahoula Crunch.” They arrested 38 people within the first two days of the crackdown, the Associated Press reported, noting how less than a third had criminal histories. The Department of Homeland Security announced several arrests of those with violent criminal charges. 

Nola.com reported that people arrested in the New Orleans area through the operation have been taken to the Hancock County jail. 

As of November, data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University showed that over 70% of ICE detainees don’t have criminal records. For those who do have criminal charges, many committed minor offenses such as traffic violations.

During previous legislative sessions, Mississippi lawmakers have introduced immigration bills to give local and state agencies enforcement powers and to financially support those efforts. 

A pair of bills from the recent session proposed creating a fund to support immigration efforts of law enforcement agencies that enter into 287(g) agreements with ICE and to create an immigration enforcement unit under the Department of Public Safety. They did not make it out of committee.

Others have proposed making immigration a state crime so local law enforcement would have the authority to enforce immigration and help federal agents. White, the state auditor, is supporting a bill to do this in the upcoming session, and he said Sen. Angela Burks Hill, a Republican from Picayune, has taken the lead on immigration bills. 

The Constitution grants the sole authority to enforce immigration to the federal government, not states. Some who have wanted to crackdown on immigration at the state level have made the opposite argument against local and state sanctuary laws aimed to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. 

“The staggering expansion of 287(g), and specifically the revival of the aggressive task force model, means that the Trump administration is building an army of deportation officers out of state and local law enforcement agencies at a scale that we have never seen before,” Kocher wrote. “Full stop.”

If you have a news tip about the immigration enforcement presence in the state, please contact us on Signal at +1-601-281-8952. You can also email us at info@mississippitoday.org or tips@mississippitoday.org.