Senate Bill 8 would require sheriffs in most Texas counties to request 287(g) agreements with ICE, where local officers help federal agents enforce immigration law.
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate gave final approval Saturday to a bill that would require sheriff’s deputies in the state’s counties that have jails to help federal authorities with immigration enforcement.
The bill still needs to get final approval from the Texas House before it can head to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature. Senate Bill 8, authored by State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown), would mandate sheriff’s offices in counties with a population of 100,000 or more that have a jail to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) program. They’ll help ICE identify people who are in the country illegally and remove them. 234 of the 254 counties in the state of Texas currently have a jail in them.
“This proven initiative empowers local law enforcement to work directly with federal immigration authorities to identify, arrest, and remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our neighborhoods,” Sen. Schwertner said.
The 287(g) program trains state and local law enforcement officials in federal immigration enforcement.
The program includes three models:
- A jail model, where authorities work to identify and remove those in the country illegally with criminal or pending criminal charges that are currently in jail.
- A warrant program, where local law enforcement helps serve warrants on those in the country illegally that are in prison.
- A task force model, which ICE describes as a “force multiplier,” as local law enforcement join ICE on some of their routine immigration enforcement duties.
The sheriff in each country would be able to decide which of those models to use for their agency.
“The sheriff, being a constitutional officer and the highest ranking law enforcement official in the state of Texas, should have discretion as to which of the types of 287G programs they choose to implement based upon their unique needs in that county,” Sen. Schwertner said. “I trust our sheriffs to choose wisely based upon their unique needs and circumstances for their county.”
The version of SB 8 approved by lawmakers comes after negotiations behind closed doors between the two chambers to resolve their differences. It gives Sheriff’s offices more leeway than the version House lawmakers passed, which would have mandated all Sheriff’s departments in the state participate in the warrant service program.
On Friday night, President Donald Trump weighed in on the debate and encouraged House lawmakers to support the Senate version of the bill.
“The Texas Senate passed a strong 287(g) bill to give local Texas Law Enforcement FULL AUTHORITY to assist the Federal Government in arresting and detaining criminals who are in our Country illegally,” Trump wrote. “The Texas House needs to pass SB8, as written. I am watching closely. It is important to Texas and to our country!”
State lawmakers and law enforcement have expressed concerns about whether or not agencies can afford the training and participation in the program. In the conference committee, state lawmakers amended the bill to open the state-funded grant program to all counties, allowing them to help pay for training, although a tiered system based on population size is in place.
Previous versions of the bill excluded counties with less than a million people from the state-funded grant program, meaning the five Texas counties over 1 million population thresholds would have had to pay for it themselves.
Under the changes to the bill, counties with a population under 100,000 would get $80,000 per year, counties with populations between 100,000 and 500,000 would get $100,000 per year, counties with populations between 500,000 and 1 million would get $120,000 per year and counties with a population over 1 million would get $140,000 per year.
“This tiered grant program guarantees every county will have funding for implementation of the fees and costs associated with the 287(g) program,” Schwertner said. “Senate Bill 8 removes barriers to implementation, equips local law enforcement, and sends a clear, uncompromising message. Texas will not tolerate criminal illegal aliens threatening our communities.”
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat from Austin, pointed out the cost per jail bed day in Travis County is $70 a day, and the $140,000 would cover 700 jail bed days. There are 2400 jail beds in Travis County, so the grant would only cover about 1/3 of one day of a full jail in Travis County.
“Are you prepared that when these major metropolitan counties that are getting reimbursed a piddly $140,000 a year need to spend more than $100 million to build more jail bed space on property tax dollars to do detentions of people who are not violent, not criminal, but they are undocumented aliens awaiting deportation?” Eckhardt asked Schwertner. “Are you prepared for the property tax hit that is going to come, and is this state prepared to backfill that property tax hit?”
“Being a legal alien in this country is a federal crime. The program is targeting primarily criminal illegal aliens. Those individuals must be apprehended, identified, prosecuted and deported,” Schwertner said. “It is incumbent to maintain the sovereignty of our state and the protection of our communities and our citizens. Perhaps we can enter into some private corporate contracts for private prisons, and we’ll see how that goes.”
Law enforcement and some Democratic state lawmakers said this would divert deputies from their day-to-day duties, which is a challenge for departments especially in smaller, more rural counties that have limited resources.
“I believe that every one of us on this floor wants criminals, regardless of what their status in this country is, to be put away behind bars. We don’t want any criminals of any kind,” State Sen. Jose Menendez (D-San Antonio) said. “My fear is that this legislation potentially puts US citizen criminals at an advantage over immigrants or potential people who may have their status in this country nebulous, especially when you have mixed families where kids could be legal, but parents one might not be legal, but one might be, as you say, legal or documented or undocumented.”
Sen. Menendez said he is worried that forcing local law enforcement to participate in immigration operations would substantially harm the relationship between the departments and community members and push victims and witnesses into the shadows because they will not trust law enforcement.
“This is now taking local law enforcement and creating them as deputy federal agents of immigration, and so I think the big concern is that too many people are worried about the fact that they may not call if there’s a domestic violence or there’s some event where they were victimized a small crime, but maybe they lived in a mixed family, and one member in the family, especially with all the videos going on around the state where there are people are showing up to their appointments and immigration appointments at federal buildings and they’re being arrested in front of their kids and kids are being handcuffed,” Menendez said. “We’re going to drive immigrants into the shadows potentially.”
Schwertner said, “If they’re not illegal aliens or doing something illegal, then they shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
In addition to spreading fear and fostering a lack of trust in local authorities who work with ICE, State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) also expressed concern it would lead to racial profiling of black and brown people.
“Are you not afraid of the potentiality for racial profiling by police if they see what presumably looks like Mexican or Hispanic people in a truck,” Gutierrez said. “That they will not be pulled over simply because of the color of their skin?”
Schwertner said that is part of the training the ICE provides to agencies that join the program.
“Our world is not racially blind, color blind. There are inherent biases of individuals. That said, there are ways to train properly, and through the 287G program task force model, there is training to address the concerns of racial profiling. There are procedures,” Schwertner said. “I think it is with safeguards and with discretion and with oversight by both ICE and by that local sheriff when it comes to any employee that they choose to place in the task force model.”
Gutierrez called the legislation, which would give resources and personnel to boost the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, “repulsive.”
“Our undocumented immigrants that serve in this country and in this state have done a substantial amount of credible work for this country and continue to do so,” Gutierrez said. “As a son of immigrants, I find all of this repulsive.”
The bill gives the Texas Attorney General the authority to take legal action against counties that don’t comply by Dec. 1, 2026. Based on 2020 census data, 40 Texas counties exceed the 100,000 threshold and would have to join the program if the bill passes.
Seventy-two Texas law enforcement agencies, primarily county sheriff’s offices, including those in Burnet and Fayette counties in Central Texas, are already participating in the program. Four more Texas sheriff’s offices have pending agreements. Approximately 20% of those agreements are based on the “task force model.”