The map of New Hampshire law enforcement agencies partnering with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the federal 287(g) program continues to shift, and this week it moved in both directions at once. Immigration and Customs Enforcement added four more towns to its participating agencies list, while the Grafton County Sheriff’s Office became the first agency in the state to formally withdraw from a 287(g) agreement, according to NHPR.
The new additions are the Kingston, Milton, Pittsfield, and Newton police departments. They join the roster of participating agencies even as their memoranda of understanding with ICE are listed as “pending” on the federal tracker. With those additions, the running total of New Hampshire agencies participating in some form of 287(g) partnership is up to 19, a meaningful increase from the 15 agencies we covered earlier this month and a continuing reflection of the federal-local immigration enforcement landscape that has been reshaped over the past year.
What 287(g) Does and Does Not Do
The 287(g) program traces back to a 1996 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act. It allows ICE to enter into written agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies that delegate certain immigration-enforcement authorities to designated, trained local officers under federal supervision. In practical terms, an officer with 287(g) training can perform specified immigration-related functions that an officer without the training cannot.
ICE currently uses three flavors of 287(g) agreement. The Jail Enforcement Model lets specifically trained officers in a county jail screen people who have already been arrested on state or local charges to identify those who are removable under federal immigration law. The Warrant Service Officer Model allows trained local officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on noncitizens already in their custody. The Task Force Model, which had been retired for years and was reactivated in recent federal policy cycles, allows local officers to perform certain immigration-enforcement functions in the field, again under federal training and supervision.
The model a department chooses determines what its officers actually do under the agreement. None of these models turn a local deputy into an ICE agent. All of them are governed by a memorandum of agreement that specifies what local officers can and cannot do, and all of them require federal training.
The Four New Towns
The four new participating agencies are clustered largely in the state’s southern tier. Kingston, Milton, Pittsfield, and Newton are small to mid-sized municipalities, each with police departments that typically operate with modest staffing. Newton Police Chief Rob DiFlumeri told NHPR that his department is still weighing its options and has not finalized the agreement, despite the federal listing. The other three departments could not be immediately reached for comment by NHPR.
The pending status on the federal tracker is meaningful. ICE’s listing of a department as a participating agency does not necessarily mean that officers in that department have completed training, signed paperwork, or begun performing 287(g) functions. It frequently means the agency has indicated intent and is moving through the federal administrative process. Newton’s situation, where the chief says the department is still deliberating but the federal listing shows participation, is a useful reminder that the public-facing roster can move faster than the operational reality.
For residents of those four communities, the practical questions are familiar. The presence of a 287(g) agreement does not change the basic mission of local policing. It does change what happens at specific points in the criminal justice process, depending on the model the department adopts. A jail screening function only activates after an arrest. A warrant service function only activates with respect to people already in custody. A task force function expands what local officers can do in the field. The model determines the footprint.
Grafton County Steps Back
The bigger story this week may be the first withdrawal of a New Hampshire law enforcement agency from a 287(g) agreement. Grafton County Sheriff Jillian Myers has pulled her office out of the partnership, marking the first such withdrawal since a wave of New Hampshire agencies began signing 287(g) agreements last spring.
Sheriff Myers has not responded to requests for confirmation from NHPR, but County Commissioner Katie Wood Hedberg, a Democrat, confirmed the change with the sheriff. Hedberg told NHPR that the decision involved both an administrative burden and political pressure. “There was a burden on her office with 91-a requests, which are the release of information,” Hedberg said. “And she had been getting ongoing concern from constituents about this agreement.”
The reference to RSA 91-A is significant. New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law allows residents to request government records, and the volume of 91-A requests directed at the sheriff’s office over the 287(g) partnership had reportedly grown to a level that drained administrative capacity. That, combined with sustained constituent pressure, appears to have been the decisive factor.
The withdrawal is something of a symbolic win for the advocacy groups that have been pushing back against the agreements. Activists in Grafton County had gathered signatures, written editorials, and submitted petitions to commissioner meetings. The sheriff’s office had only one trained deputy, had not made any 287(g) arrests, and had not collected the federal stipends that are sometimes paid to participating agencies. The operational footprint of the Grafton agreement was small. The political footprint was not.
Why the New Hampshire Count Is Rising and Falling at the Same Time
Both directions of movement reflect the same underlying dynamic. Federal policy under the current administration has actively encouraged local law enforcement participation in immigration enforcement. ICE has expanded outreach to local agencies, streamlined the application process for 287(g) agreements, and reactivated the Task Force Model that gives the program a more visible field presence. At the same time, communities are pushing back. Petitions, letters to commissioners, and 91-A records requests are levers that residents of any New Hampshire town can pull, and they are being pulled.
For sheriffs and police chiefs, the calculus involves more than ideology. There is administrative burden in maintaining a 287(g) agreement, training requirements, paperwork, and recordkeeping obligations. There is the political cost of standing up to or alongside the constituent activism the agreement generates. And there is the operational question of whether the agreement actually changes how a department does its job. In a county like Grafton, with one trained deputy and no arrests, the operational answer was effectively no. The withdrawal followed.
In other parts of the state, the operational case for the partnership is different. Sheriffs and chiefs in communities with larger jails, more frequent intersections with immigration enforcement, or stronger political support for the federal policy are reaching the opposite conclusion. That is how a state can simultaneously see four additions and one withdrawal in a single week.
What Comes Next
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement strategy continues to lean on the multiplier effect of local partnerships. Expect ICE to continue encouraging additional New Hampshire agencies to sign on, particularly in the southern tier where the most recent additions cluster. Expect advocacy groups to continue pressing for withdrawals, particularly in counties where the operational footprint of the agreement is small and the political cost is rising.
Granite Staters who want to track which agencies in their community participate can monitor the federal ICE tracker, as well as related state-level enforcement debates such as the Raymond Masse shooting that involved 13 officers and civil liability rulings touching local police and read the underlying memoranda of agreement when they are signed. The agreements specify the model, the number of trained officers, the scope of the delegated authority, and the reporting obligations. They are not classified documents, and they are subject to RSA 91-A requests in New Hampshire.
The 287(g) story in New Hampshire is no longer a single direction of growth. It is now a story of both expansion and contraction, with the balance determined locally, agency by agency, county by county. The total count of 19 will move again, in both directions, in the months ahead.
Frequently Asked Questions
For related coverage, see our reporting on Habeas Corpus Petitions Surge in New Hampshire’s Federal Court as Immigration….
