The police officer who is supposed to keep your street safe can now be the one who delivers you to one of ICE's concentration camps. This is done through a 287(g) agreement, a provision of U.S. immigration law that lets the federal government deputize local police and sheriffs to act as immigration agents.
A county signs a memorandum, its officers sit through a short training, and the ordinary business of local policing, the routine stop, the call for help, becomes a channel into ICE custody. For most of this law's life it was a marginal arrangement that few forces wanted. Then the second Trump term began, and the line went vertical. Since the inauguration that saw the world's richest man throw two nazi salutes at the crowd, the ruling regime in the USA has overseen a 1,428% increase in the number of 287(g) agreements.
