ICE Aims to Lower US Immigration Detention Standards to Encourage More Sheriffs to Aid Crackdown

Reuters

15:16 JST, February 2, 2025

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration aims to lower its existing detention standards to encourage more U.S. sheriffs to provide jail space to detain immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said on Saturday.

Homan said at an annual meeting of the National Sheriffs’ Association in Washington, D.C., that the administration was working to allow U.S. sheriffs to detain migrants in their jails using their state-level standards instead of more rigorous U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guidelines and to reduce the number of federal inspections.

“Your detention standards, your state detention standards, is what we’re looking at,” Homan said. “If that’s good enough for a U.S. citizen in your county, it’s good enough for an illegal immigrant detained for us,” Homan said.

President Donald Trump launched a wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration after taking office on Jan. 20, redirecting military resources to support border security and deportations while empowering ICE officers to arrest more non-criminals.

ICE arrests nationwide have increased in the past week with about 900-1,200 people picked up per day, according to the agency, compared with a daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024. The enforcement actions included arrests in so-called “sanctuary” cities that limit cooperation with ICE, including New York and Chicago.

ICE is funded to detain a daily average of 41,500 immigrants in fiscal year 2024 but the agency currently has about 40,000 detainees, according to the most recent statistics.

The Trump administration said this week that it would add 30,000 detention beds at a migrant camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and more at a military base in Aurora, Colorado.

Homan rallied sheriffs to provide jail space and called on them to join a program known as 287(g) that allows state and local law enforcement to increase collaboration with ICE.

“The sheriffs in the room, we need your bed space. We need your 287(g) agreements,” he said. “We need that force multiplier.”