WASHINGTON – Six of Arizona’s 15 counties have agreements to cooperate with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So do the city of Mesa and the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Amid the backlash to the killings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Democrats in the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature tried unsuccessfully to forbid such cooperation.
Meanwhile, GOP measures requiring that police agencies make the deals – known as 287(g) agreements – have advanced through the state Senate, though their prospects are likely dim if they reach the desk of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Arizona is among at least 21 states where lawmakers have proposed bills addressing how state and local law enforcement agencies interact with ICE – some requiring cooperation and others prohibiting it.
On Feb. 17, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed a law ending cooperation with ICE. The nine county sheriffs with existing agreements have 90 days to end them. Similar bills have been proposed in Minnesota, Kansas, New Mexico and Virginia.
Momentum for these measures grew after the January shooting deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, where the Trump administration had surged 3,000 immigration and border officers, sparking protests. White House border adviser Tom Homan announced an end to the surge on Feb. 12.
In the Arizona Legislature, a less sweeping proposal from state Rep. Seth Blattman, D-Mesa, would have prohibited new cooperation agreements with ICE and renewal of such agreements.
That bill died in committee.
On the pro-cooperation side, the Senate approved a bill March 3 by Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, that would require every county sheriff to enter agreements with ICE by Jan. 1, 2027. The bill also mandates that immigration training for at least 10% of officers and bans local policies that limit cooperation with ICE.
Sen. Catherine Miranda, D-Laveen, said she is “extremely concerned” about the implications of the bill.
“This will absolutely strain state and local resources if all our law enforcement agencies are required to enforce federal immigration laws,” she said. “We should focus on ensuring our law enforcement agencies are working alongside communities to establish trust, not fear.”
Miranda’s own proposal went nowhere: a sweeping measure that would have voided existing cooperation agreements and banned new ones, and overturned Proposition 314, approved by voters in November 2024, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. Her bill also would have nullified the controversial 2010 law known as S.B. 1070 that requires police to check suspects’ immigration status.
Rogers defended her legislation at a Feb. 16 hearing, arguing that when ICE and local authorities cooperate, citizens are safer, which would “ameliorate the concerns of the local community.”
Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, proposed a sheriff-led “deportation task force” to assist ICE deportation efforts. That bill likewise died in committee.
Disputes over the use of 287(g) agreements in Arizona are not new.
In 2011, the U.S. Justice Department ended a 287(g) agreement with Maricopa County after an investigation found routine racial profiling under Sheriff Joe Arpaio. A court-appointed monitor has had the sheriff’s office under federal oversight since 2013.
The DOJ found that officers stopped Latino drivers up to nine times more often than non-Latinos. In July 2017, a federal judge found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt for defying her orders to end racial profiling. President Donald Trump pardoned him the following month.
Arpaio claimed vindication last September after the U.S. Supreme Court’s order allowing, for now, federal immigration officers to stop and detain people based on such factors as ethnicity, use of Spanish or accented English, or work in landscaping or construction.
“The decision validates the very methods that led to my wrongful contempt conviction, confirming that my crime-fighting actions were legal, constitutional, and grounded in common sense,” he posted on Facebook.
In August 2025, the Pinal County Attorney’s Office entered into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security without approval from the county’s Board of Supervisors. In February, a judge issued a temporary order putting the deal on hold.
The Board of Supervisors sued County Attorney Brad Miller for overstepping his authority.
“Only the County Sheriff, and not the County Attorney or his office, has the power to ‘preserve the peace,’” the lawsuit asserted. Although entering the deal “may gratify the political ambitions of the County Attorney, doing so does damage to the rule of law and orderly government.”
A separate 287(g) jail enforcement agreement between the Pinal County sheriff and DHS remains in force. Such agreements allow sheriffs to hold people suspected of being in the country illegally and hand them over to federal authorities.
“I don’t know anyone in Pinal County that doesn’t support it,” said Sheriff Ross Teeple.
This story includes material from the Statehouse Reporting Project, a collaborative effort by collegiate journalism programs across the country.
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