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Escalation of ICE Operations Emboldens State and Local Lawmakers to Constrain Its Operations

Federal officers and protesters in Portland, Oregon. (Photo: ICE)

State and local governments have moved to constrain federal immigration enforcement efforts since the return of the Trump administration, especially in the aftermath of recent dramatic events in Minneapolis. While the globally televised fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the detention of 5-year-old Ecuadorian asylum seeker Liam Conejo Ramos may have shifted public opinion against the Trump administration’s expansive enforcement tactics, a number of jurisdictions had already begun to assert their authority in response to the growing federal enforcement.

As masked federal agents swept through U.S. communities last year, state lawmakers in California, Colorado, and Illinois introduced legislation to limit cooperation with federal immigration agencies, increase oversight and accountability, and strengthen protections for immigrants. At the local level, mayors and town councils have issued numerous executive orders and resolutions in support of immigrants, limiting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to government property and data, and providing funds for residents affected by enforcement operations.

Even as this is occurring, many Republican-led states and localities have doubled down on cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, in some cases requiring local law enforcement officers to assist ICE with arresting and detaining immigrants. The result is a growing patchwork of responses that differ from location to location across the country.

Initiatives to limit cooperation with ICE have mostly been introduced in Democrat-led jurisdictions, including “blue dots” in Republican-led states, that have sought to distance themselves from President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. For example, the recently elected Democratic mayor of Miami, Eileen Higgins, spoke out forcefully against the Florida-run immigration detention facility, Alligator Alcatraz. Democrats in red-leaning states such as Tennessee have also introduced bills to restrict ICE officers from wearing masks and to limit their access to certain sensitive locations such as churches and schools. There seems to be some concern among Republicans, too. Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt (R) successfully discouraged ICE’s acquisition of a facility in his city for immigrant detention, and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) helped block the creation of a detention facility in his state, although he said he supports immigration enforcement more generally.

To be sure, lawsuits challenging some of the new restrictions have delayed or dulled some of their effects, with California’s ban on federal agents wearing masks put on hold by a federal judge. And many of the jurisdictions are bracing for retaliation from the Trump administration. Federal officials, as attempted during the first Trump term, have conditioned tens of billions of federal dollars on cooperation with the immigration enforcement agenda, though federal judges have once again blocked many of those requirements. Trump has attacked noncooperation policies as a “lawless insurrection against the supremacy of federal law.”

During President Barack Obama’s second term and Trump’s first, such “sanctuary” policies—especially measures restricting the transfer to ICE of immigrants booked into state and local jails and prisons—were seen as having curtailed immigration enforcement. This article reviews the increasing state and local assertiveness on immigration, and potential legal and political challenges.

[Enforcement Focused on “Sanctuary” Jurisdictions]

Following the Good and Pretti shootings in Minneapolis, Trump administration “border czar” Tom Homan conditioned a drawdown of federal agents from the city on increased cooperation by state and local law enforcement officials. Attorney General Pam Bondi said sanctuary policies were partly why immigration agents were needed there in the first place. Across the country, similar scenes have played out as the Trump administration has defended its muscular immigration enforcement and surged officers to Democrat-led cities including Los Angeles; Washington, DC; Chicago; Charlotte; and New Orleans.

While sanctuary jurisdictions are an amorphous category, the phrase typically refers to policies limiting state or local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, often by restricting information-sharing about a person’s immigration status. The sanctuary movement spread in the 1980s as religious and grassroots organizations provided haven to Central Americans facing deportation and saw renewed interest in the early 2010s as immigration enforcement efficacy surged under the Obama administration due to expanded information-sharing programs such as Secure Communities.

Supporters of sanctuary policies argue that cooperation with ICE makes local communities less safe because immigrant communities may fear reporting crimes. They also make the case that unauthorized immigrants stopped for low-level offenses such as traffic violations should not be automatically turned over for deportation. In most sanctuary locations, state and local officials will collaborate with ICE on the transfer of noncitizens convicted of serious crimes. Critics, meanwhile, allege that the policies flout federal immigration laws, amount to the harboring of unauthorized immigrants, and result in higher crime. Studies have tended to show that sanctuary jurisdictions were safer and had less crime than other comparable jurisdictions, though causality is hard to establish.

On the other side of the ledger, jurisdictions looking to increase their coordination with ICE have often turned to agreements, known as 287(g) agreements, that deputize local officers to arrest and detain deportable noncitizens. The agreements were authorized by the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act but have become especially popular since Trump’s return in January 2025.

Why State and Local Opposition—and Cooperation—Matters

One reason the Trump administration has focused so much attention on combating sanctuary policies and pushing 287(g) agreements is because sanctuary policies were effective in blunting deportation efforts during its first term. Since at least 2015, the vast majority of ICE arrests have resulted from officers picking up noncitizens at state or local jails in what are called custodial arrests. Of the almost 1.3 million ICE arrests from fiscal year (FY) 2015 to FY 2024, about 840,000 were custodial and 437,000 at-large arrests, which occur at homes, workplaces, and, more recently, at immigration courts and ICE check-ins. In places where ICE has limited access to jails and prisons, more officers and resources are required to track and arrest noncitizens. It takes only one or two officers to conduct a custodial arrest, Homan recently stated, while an at-large arrest could require eight to ten personnel. Sending armed agents into U.S. communities also increases the risks to the public as well as to federal personnel, Homan and others have noted.

While ICE has provided limited data on its operations in 2025 and 2026, researchers have found that from late January to mid-October, 52 percent of ICE arrests took place at jails and prisons, and arrests occurred at lower rates in so-called sanctuary states such as Illinois, New York, and Oregon than elsewhere. In Tennessee, where law enforcement is mandated to cooperate with ICE, three out of every four ICE arrests were conducted at a jail.

To try to increase states' and localities’ cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the administration launched an unprecedented pressure campaign immediately upon retaking office. Trump signed three executive orders targeting sanctuary jurisdictions and recently called for a halt on all federal funding to them. In a redux of Trump’s first term, federal officials have sought to withhold or rescind tens of billions of dollars in federal funding for transportation and public-health projects, although federal judges have blocked many such moves. The Justice Department has also filed lawsuits challenging state and municipal laws and policies limiting cooperation, though it too has had a losing record in court so far.

Still, some of the pressure has worked as intended. In July 2025, for example, Louisville, Kentucky leaders changed course and agreed to cooperate with immigration officials, reportedly out of fear of negative consequences if they did not. Other local officials have complained that they were wrongfully included in a public Justice Department list of sanctuary jurisdictions and appealed to the administration to be removed.

[A Resurgence of State and Local Activism ]

State and local activism on immigration regained momentum as the Trump administration has ramped up its immigration actions. Democratic-led states have mostly proposed limiting the effects of federal immigration operations, while Republican-led states have sought to increase cooperation with DHS. However, there is also increasing evidence of a bipartisan consensus emerging on efforts to increase oversight and accountability for the tactics, location, and manner of operations conducted. For instance, DHS leaders embraced calls to equip officers in Minneapolis with body cameras in the wake of the recent shootings, and lawmakers from both parties in some states have sought to limit immigration authorities’ surveillance abilities (in Colorado) and prevent officers from wearing masks (in Vermont).

The activism at the state level is directly reflected in the rapid increase in the number of new immigration-related state laws, from 106 across 36 states and territories in 2024, during former President Joe Biden’s last year in office, to 213 in 2025, spanning 46 states and territories. That is the most since 2017—the first year of Trump’s first term—when an equal number of immigration-related bills was enacted across 49 states and territories, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (see Figure 1). The number of state and municipal executive orders, ordinances, and resolutions on immigration are not known.

Figure 1. Immigration-Related State Laws Enacted, 2008-26*

Data for 2026 are as of February.Sources*: National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), “Immigration Legislation Archived Database | 2008-2023,” updated December 14, 2023, available online; NCSL, “Immigration Legislation Database,” accessed February 24, 2026, available online.

Key Trends in Limiting Cooperation

Some recent proposals are charting new ground. For example, prior to 2025, no laws or resolutions were enacted concerning immigration officers wearing masks, which officers have done in an unprecedented manner under the second Trump term. In 2025, California and Connecticut passed legislation limiting the use of masks during immigration enforcement and at least 15 other states—including Republican-controlled ones such as Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee—are considering their own bills.

While there are numerous areas that such new legislation covers, there is a coalescence around five core themes:

Mask restrictions and identification requirements for federal officers conducting immigration operations, with some limited exceptions for exigent circumstances. California, Connecticut, and Oregon, among others, have advanced this approach, although a court has blocked California’s law. DHS has said that masks are necessary due to increasing assaults and doxing of federal officers, while critics argue that noncitizens and U.S. citizens alike fear being abducted by unidentified personnel, and federal authorities have warned of criminals impersonating ICE.Requiring judicial warrants for arrests at sensitive locationssuch as government buildings, courthouses, schools, hospitals, and churches. Last year, DHS rescinded a longstanding policy limiting arrests in sensitive locations, allowing agents more flexibility to conduct enforcement. Immigrant advocates have warned that school and court attendance has decreased due to the change and argued that federal officers should need to show probable cause to enter such spaces by obtaining a warrant signed by a judge. States that have enacted or explored this requirement include Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia.Allowing civil lawsuits against immigration agents for misconduct or wrongful detention. Over time, the U.S. Supreme Court has sharply narrowed avenues for seeking legal relief under federal law for criminal misconduct by federal officers. However, bills in Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon would allow lawsuits under state law, which proponents say are necessary to hold wrongdoers to account.Prohibiting partnerships with ICE, including barring state or local law enforcement cooperation (as in Maryland and New York), preventing data-collection and sharing of information (as in Colorado, Illinois, and Oregon) and forbidding the hiring of former ICE officers (as in Maryland and Washington as well as Cambridge, Massachusetts). Many states and municipalities already bar cooperating or sharing information with ICE, but recent proposals expand on or introduce new restrictions on sharing data collected at government agencies, school, hospitals, or by license-plate scanners. DHS has argued it needs the data to track and locate deportable noncitizens for arrest. Bars on hiring officers who joined ICE after January 20, 2025 relate to concerns about inadequate training (in Maryland, these individuals could be hired for non-law enforcement roles).Barring or restricting immigration detention facilities, such as in New Mexico; Howard County, Maryland; and Kansas City, Missouri. In response to significant community pushback against ICE plans to detain immigrants in industrial warehouses, lawmakers have introduced emergency legislation alleging that certain facilities were not designed for holding human beings or that existing detention facilities should end ICE contracts due to poor conditions. ICE is searching for facilities amid its efforts to increase immigration detention capacity to more than 100,000 nationwide.

The specifics of these proposals vary, but many build on the numerous existing laws and policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. There can be a cumulative effect as policies are layered on top of each other, resulting in different levels of (non)cooperation depending on the jurisdiction. For instance, adding to New York State’s own limits on cooperation, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) signed an executive order in early February prohibiting ICE from entering city property without a judicial warrant and enhancing data-privacy protections. The order also requires an audit to ensure city agencies are compliant and creates an interagency committee to coordinate immigration policy in the event of a crisis.

Other enacted measures go beyond what would until recently have been considered politically feasible in certain jurisdictions and could prove to be some of the most impactful in limiting ICE’s ability to make large-scale arrests at jails and prisons. For instance, in February New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) signed the sweeping Immigrant Safety Act, HB 9, which prohibits state and local officials from entering into new contracts for immigration detention centers or renewing existing ones (about 2,000 noncitizens were detained in three facilities there as of early February). The law also bans the use of state facilities for immigration detention and prohibits 287(g) agreements.

Following the fatal shootings in Minneapolis, Maryland lawmakers passed a similar prohibition on 287(g) agreements, despite previous concerns that the Trump administration would retaliate by withholding federal funding for the rebuilding of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and other infrastructure projects. Following Governor Wes Moore’s (D) signing of the bill, nine sheriff’s departments now must end their cooperation agreements, although several have said they will continue cooperating with ICE in other ways. At least nine other states currently bar or restrict law enforcement officers from entering 287(g) agreements with ICE, and New York, Hawaii, and Virginia are considering similar measures.

A multitude of other measures have been proposed or enacted to hamstring immigration operations. These include imposing fees on private property owners who allow federal agents to use their property (as Los Angeles is in the process of doing), limiting schools from collecting immigration status (as, for example, Illinois has done), and creating official “know-your-rights” websites with information on what to do if residents are arrested by immigration agents (as Arizona has created).

[States Increasing Cooperation with ICE]

While much attention has been focused on immigration enforcement surges in Democrat-led cities, Republican state and local policymakers in particular have sought to increase cooperation with DHS and have dedicated state funds and resources towards supporting the mass deportations agenda. The most notable sign of this has been the rapid spike in Republican-led jurisdictions entering into 287(g) agreements. The number of these agreements increased from 135 in January 2025, when Trump took office, to 1,427 as of February 20, 2026. In 18 states that did not have these agreements before the start of Trump’s second term, local law enforcement agencies have since signed up, and at least eight states have moved to require localities’ participation. The largest numbers of 287(g) agreements are in Florida (342 as of February 20) and Texas (303), the most populous GOP-led states and the most activist on pro-immigration-enforcement-related legislation.

Some cities and towns have pushed back against state mandates either to require or limit cooperation with federal immigration officers, in what is known as the red or blue “dot” phenomenon. In Colorado, for example, exurban Douglas County challenged the state’s bar on holding unauthorized immigrants solely in response to an ICE request (called a detainer), although in that case a Denver district judge ruled against the county, finding that it did not have a legal basis to challenge the state’s authority.

[Courts Will Have the Final Say]

Ultimately, the courts will be final arbiters of many of the laws and policy changes described above. Efforts both for and against cooperation with DHS have faced court challenges, and some measures were intentionally designed in response to past litigation. In California, for example, a law seeking to ban the establishment or operation of private immigration detention facilities was struck down in October 2022, so a more recent bill has taken a different tack: Seeking to tax detention facility operators 50 percent of their gross receipts annually, with funds going into an immigration-related legal services fund called “Due Process for All.” After California’s law restricting the use of masks during immigration operations was quickly paused by a federal judge this year, the lawmaker who introduced it vowed to modify the law to include state officers, seemingly to satisfy the court’s concerns about discrimination.

In some cases, though, the courts can take a long time to resolve disputes, and the wave of new 287(g) agreements revives the potential for local jurisdictions to be on the hook for multimillion-dollar settlements years down the road, if their practices are ultimately ruled unlawful. For instance, it was not until 2020 that Los Angeles County paid $14 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit over actions from 2010 to 2014 in which it detained 18,500 noncitizens past the completion of their state sentences in order to turn them over to ICE. In a similar case, a lawsuit filed in 2017 resulted in Suffolk County, New York being ordered to pay $112 million in damages in late 2025. Analysts have predicted that in some cases, settlements could dwarf local budgets.

Unprecedented Enforcement and Unprecedented Responses

One year into the second Trump term, it is clear that responses by state and local governments to heightened immigration enforcement have evolved. States seeking to limit cooperation with DHS are innovating based on past court losses, while those seeking to increase cooperation are charging forward despite the risk of overreach. On both sides of the equation, state and local officials are likely to see continued pressure to increase support for the federal mass deportations campaign, which is being fueled by an additional $170 billion for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. With money from that law, state and local law enforcement agencies with 287(g) agreements can be reimbursed for officer salaries, vehicles, and technology, incentivizing the arrest and detention of noncitizens.

At the same time, public support for ICE’s actions has reached new lows, even among Republicans, and it has harmed the president’s standing in the polls. Per a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll from late February, 58 percent of adults did not support Trump’s immigration policies, an increase of 10 percent since last February. Even a controversial position such as “abolishing ICE” had support from 80 percent of Democrats and 15 percent of Trump voters, according to a YouGov poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s shooting.

That dissatisfaction is resonating in Congress, where lawmakers’ disputes over restrictions on DHS operations caused parts of the department to shut down in mid-February (and remain shut down at this writing), although most of the ICE and CBP missions have continued largely unhindered due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act funding. The ongoing congressional negotiations are centered around immigration officers wearing masks, requiring judicial warrants to enter homes, detention capacity and conditions, and the use of body cameras.

In the meantime, the Trump administration may continue to pursue more boundary-pushing strategies to bring Democrat-led jurisdictions to heel. In a sharp escalation, the Justice Department in January reportedly began investigating Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) for alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents. Opening of the case against elected officials underscores that yet another new chapter has begun in the evolving standoff between the federal government and localities over immigration enforcement.

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