Last February, nearly all of Pinellas County’s 10 local police departments signed “287(g) agreements,” which deputize local police to do some of the jobs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Records obtained by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay show that the agreements were signed within days of each other—right after Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told Pinellas chiefs of police that new laws put “legal obligations” on all of them to “do certain things” at threat of removal from office by Governor Ron DeSantis.
As previously reported, 287(g) agreements allow designated immigration officers (DIOs) to incorporate immigration enforcement into their jobs. After completing a 40-hour online training, DIOs can make arrests for civil immigration warrants that are usually only enforceable by ICE agents. They can also question civilians on their legal residency status and conduct immigration investigations according to agency-specific policies.
Following a Feb. 25 email and conference call from Gualtieri, several police chiefs in Pinellas said they believed they were required to enter into the agreement. Police departments are not required to sign on to 287(g) agreements in the first place, but now that they have, it’s not clear if they can leave them without violating Florida law. South Miami’s police department wasn’t legally required to sign an agreement, but Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier used Florida’s law against “sanctuary cities” to pressure Key West to re-enter their 287(g) agreement after they attempted to end it…