24-05-2025
Texas House considers mandate for local sheriffs departments to partner with federal immigration authorities
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Texas House members will debate a variety of legislation on Saturday, ranging from requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms to requiring certain sheriff's departments to partner with federal authorities in immigration enforcement, the latter of which has sparked a lot of attention on the Capitol.
Senate Bill 8 would mandate sheriffs' offices in counties with a population above 100,000 to enter into an agreement with Immigration Customs and Enforcement's (ICE) 287(g) program. It passed the Texas Senate on April 1.
The 287(g) program allows non-federal law enforcement members to assume some ICE duties. There are three different models underneath the program:
Jail Enforcement – allows officers to question people to determine immigration status, put their information into a Homeland Security database, take statements and begin the deportation process with an immigration detainer and notice to appear.
Warrant Service Officer – a narrower scope than jail enforcement, with officers identifying people as non-citizens during the booking process, referring those people to ICE for evaluation and possible deportation, and serving ICE administrative warrants on people in their custody, according to the ACLU.
Task Force Model – described by ICE as a 'force multiplier,' allowing local officers to enforce immigration laws during their routine duties in the community.
The number of 287(g) agreements soared across the country after President Donald Trump won re-election in November, campaigning on a promise to deport undocumented people from the country.
The bill, authored by State Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, would provide a state-funded grant program to help counties under one million in population to pay for the training associated with joining the program. Counties over the one million threshold would be required to fund it from their own budget.
'It's time for Texas to take a very bold and powerful stance against criminal aliens and illegal immigration,' Schwertner explained. He said the goal of the program is to get criminals out of Texas communities.
Critics of the bill call it an unfunded mandate and a racist bill that would erode trust with the local law enforcement and minority communities.
Groups like the Workers Defense Action Fund (WDAF) protested inside the Capitol rotunda on Saturday morning. David Chincanchan, the policy director for WDAF, explained he feels the 287(g) program leads to racial profiling.
'It would prevent our local sheriffs from being able to focus on keeping the community safe, on serving the needs of their constituents, and instead, it would force them to act in the role of essentially ICE agents, and it would force them to be complicit in the separation of families in our own neighborhoods,' Chincanchan said.
The bill is also facing criticism from local sheriff's offices who are worried about the cost of the program. It would require sending a deputy or correctional officer out-of-state to get trained for about a month, creating a burden on departments that have a lack of staffing to begin with.
Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne, who serves as Legislative Chairman for the Sheriff's Association of Texas, testified on that fact in March during a committee hearing.
'We think that financial relief portion shouldn't be in a grant program, it should just be a part of the program,' Hawthorne testified. 'And it should cover all 254 counties that get into the program.'
Hawthorne said it costs $10,000 to train each officer in his department.
Calhoun County Sheriff Bobbie Vickery shares the same concerns. His county of about 25,000 people joined the 287(g) program in 2017 and said it 'works very well,' but he, too worried about the cost. 'This could potentially put a very harsh monetary strain on our budgets every year,' Vickery testified.
The grant program would not cover the state's biggest counties with more than one million people.
When asked about opponents to his legislation, Schwertner said, 'I ask them if they want criminal aliens running around and causing violence and crime against citizens that they know, Texans they know, and I would hope their answer would be no.'
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