287(g) Watch, rebuilt for election season

Election Day is two weeks away, and we have found 242 sheriff’s offices with 287(g) agreements that have a sheriff’s race on the ballot.

The 287(g) program, named for a section of federal immigration law, lets ICE deputize local police and sheriff’s deputies to carry out immigration enforcement. In nearly every state, sheriffs are elected, and it’s usually the sheriff who ultimately decides whether a county signs on. That makes the vote for sheriff one of the few direct ways voters can weigh in on the program.

Now, 287(g) Watch shows those races. Every agency page in a county that elects its sheriff this year shows the race: who’s running, their party, and whether a candidate signed one or more agreements. Whether you support the program or oppose it, you should be able to see if someone running for office signed your local agreement.

That’s the timely part. The bigger news is that we rebuilt the whole site. It’s faster, more searchable, easier to read on a phone, and goes deeper on every agency, every state and the program’s history. As of October 16, it tracks 2,231 participating agencies in 40 states.

ICE’s list of 287(g) agreements tells you who signed, for which program and when. It doesn’t tell you why, what it costs or what it changes on the ground. We’ve added election data, and more joined data is coming, but the rest takes groundwork: observing law enforcement, requesting records, making calls, and asking questions in public, at county meetings and candidate forums. Here’s where to start.

“Is my local department in the program?”

Start with the search box at the top of any page and type an agency, a county or a state. Say you live in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which is in Laramie County. Search “Laramie” and open the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office. Or just search for Wyoming.

Using the old site for our own research, we found that looking up a single agency took several steps. Now you just start typing.

“Who’s running for sheriff, and did they sign?”

Until Election Day, the election card lists each candidate and their party, and notes any candidate who signed the agreement. Buttons take you to register to vote and, for most states, to your state’s voter information. It also includes how people in that county voted in the 2024 presidential election to give you a better idea of the local politics.

In Laramie County, Brian Kozak, the Republican who signed the agreement, faces Democrat Robin Cozad. In Hale County, Alabama, the signer is the Democrat: Michael Hamilton faces Republican Kevin McDaniel.

But most signers don’t face anyone at all. In the 146 counties where we have official candidate lists, we found 22 sheriffs on the November ballot who signed their office’s agreement. Eighteen of them are unopposed.

We show the sheriff’s race on the pages for every agency in a county, because residents of the cities and towns those departments serve vote for the sheriff too. The Pine Bluffs Police Department page, for example, shows the Laramie County race.

Some questions worth asking any candidate, whether while reporting or at a town hall:

• Will you keep the agreement, change it or end it?
• How many of your officers are trained under it, and what have they done with that authority?
• How many people has your office turned over to ICE, and will you publish that number?
• How much funding has your office received from the federal government, and how did you use it?

“What’s happening in my state?”

Some of the most consequential decisions about 287(g) are happening at the state level. States like Florida and Texas make participation mandatory via legislation, while states like Illinois have prohibited it.

Each state gets its own page because a single law can put all a state’s sheriffs into the program or keep them out.

For example, North Carolina opens with a map of the state’s 32 agencies and a chart of how participation has grown. Next come the 2026 races: 28 of those 32 agencies are in counties that elect a sheriff this year, and we have the official candidate list for every one of them, from the State Board of Elections.

Below that is an AI-written summary of recent news coverage, in English and Spanish, with links to the original reporting. Last comes a table of every agency, which you can filter to the ones with a sheriff’s race this year. Each row links to its signed agreement.

The newest North Carolina agreement, for the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office, was signed October 9, three and a half weeks before the county votes for sheriff.

“I want the data or free content to share.”

The downloads page has every agency in the program, plus the 111 that have left it, as one CSV with a data dictionary that explains each column. The same page has our maps, videos and images, in English and Spanish, refreshed as the data changes.

All of it is free to use, including in your own reporting, as long as you credit 287(g) Watch.

After November 3, we’ll add the winners from preliminary and certified results when they are available.