A Report on Detainers: Escalating Jailhouse Immigration Enforcement

Priya Sreenivasan, Jason A. Cade, and Azadeh Shahshahani, Dec. 2021

"In January 2017, former President Trump announced Executive Order 13768, in which he pledged to expand 287(g) agreements across the country, a program that deputizes state and local authorities to perform functions of immigration enforcement, and required the Department of Homeland Security to publish a list of counties that refused to honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers (also referred to as “ICE holds”). Through the increased use of 287(g) contracts and other forms of jailhouse immigration screening arrangements, local law enforcement agencies became increasingly involved with federal immigration enforcement during the Trump administration. Although numerous federal courts have ruled that detaining noncitizens solely pursuant to ICE holds violates the Fourth Amendment, ICE continues to use jailhouse screening and detainer requests to facilitate the apprehension, detention, and removal of immigrants across the country. This report analyzes the 35,916 ICE detainers that were issued between fiscal years 2016 and 2018 in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, as well as the state bills and local policies that foster cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement in these states."