Last month, Douglas County became the first Nevada jurisdiction in years to join a controversial program known as 287(g) that allows local law enforcement to assist with federal immigration law enforcement — and not just a version that would allow immigration work in the jail, but an expanded version that would have allowed them to stop suspected undocumented people in the community and even arrest them without a warrant.
But shortly after, the sheriff’s office for the Northern Nevada county which encompasses Minden, Gardnerville and the shores of Lake Tahoe, backtracked and said they did not sign an agreement that would have allowed all such stops, known as the 287(g) task force model (TFO).
“It was never my intention to engage in the TFO model,” Douglas County Sheriff Dan Coverley said in an email obtained via a public records request to the Department of Homeland Security on the afternoon of March 7. That email came a week after his office put out a press release saying that the media misreported Douglas County’s participation in the task force model program.
According to that release, Douglas County will not plan to stop or question individuals solely to determine their immigration status or conduct immigration enforcement operations such as “immigration sweeps.”
But The Nevada Independent has obtained documents via public record requests that indicate Douglas County initially did sign such an agreement. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the sheriff’s office and ICE officials on Feb. 19 authorized certain Douglas County officers to fulfill the exact same duties as outlined in the task force model, including arresting suspected undocumented people without a warrant.
The agreement — since rescinded according to Coverley — would also have allowed some Douglas County officials to transport undocumented people to ICE detention facilities. Douglas County is still participating under the warrant service model that allows them to execute ICE administrative warrants in their jails for “designated” undocumented persons.
Still, Coverley told The Nevada Independent he did not realize he signed such an agreement as the paperwork that ICE sent over did not explicitly say task force in the title.
The confusion about Douglas County’s collaboration with ICE has raised questions from legislators, civil rights groups, and even the sheriff himself about what exactly local police collaboration with ICE looks like as President Donald Trump steps into his second term.
The stakes of such increased collaboration on the administration’s mass deportation efforts could be especially high in Nevada, which has the nation’s largest per-capita undocumented population.
Read More: Indy Explains: What is 287(g) and are Nevada police cooperating with ICE?
Douglas County’s 287(g) agreement is part of a greater, nationwide expansion of the program, which Trump has eyed as a force-multiplier amid ICE staffing shortages. Since Trump has stepped back into office, dozens of such memorandums of understandings (MOUs) have been signed from Florida to Alaska, reversing a decline in the program that occurred during President Joe Biden’s administration.
The Trump administration only recently revived the task force model after it was discontinued in 2012 following a Department of Justice investigation that discovered widespread racial profiling and other discrimination against Latinos in Arizona. According to the ICE website, Mineral County is the only other Nevada agency to be participating in 287(g) with a pending task force model agreement and active warrant service officer agreement as of early March.
Coverley said he thought the task force agreement was part of another agreement his agency signed, known as the “warrant service model,” that allows certain law enforcement officers to execute ICE administrative warrants in their jails.
“It was an assumption on my part, which was incorrect,” Coverley said in an interview Wednesday with The Nevada Independent.
Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said the sheriff’s confusion is indicative of the convoluted nature of agreements between local police and the federal government, especially as the Trump administration has faced criticism about transparency and threatening First Amendment rights. He expects that transparency about ICE collaboration will become more difficult as Trump’s term progresses.
“If the sheriff’s office themselves are struggling to understand the distinction between the two [agreements], just imagine what that looks like for the rest of the state … and the rest of the community,” Haseebullah said.
Haseebullah says that Douglas County could make additional efforts to clarify the nature of their agreements, and that given the confusion, he believes the sheriff’s office should give the public detailed plans for what collaboration looks like and share all agreements proactively.
During a Wednesday hearing about the county in the Legislature, lawmakers grilled Coverley about specifics of their 287(g) agreement and whether Douglas County planned on using local dollars to fund federal immigration enforcement.
“I think ultimately, one of the biggest concerns we’ve always had on whether or not we’re going to work with [Department of Homeland Security] and ICE enforcement is how we’re going to spend money safely because it’s just money we don’t have,” said Sen. Edgar Flores (D-Las Vegas).
One section of Douglas’ agreement with ICE stipulates that the federal government may issue travel orders to selected personnel if “training provides a direct service for the government” but that local government remains responsible for officers’ salaries — a clause that legislators raised concerns about during the hearing.
While Coverley said that “it would be nice if our federal partners put a little more thought into it,” he maintained that the cost of the 287(g) program is “very minimal” for his office. He said ICE pays for equipment and pays deputies assigned to immigration enforcement duties for their overtime.
Five Douglas County officers will be participating in the jail-based warrant service model program, he said, and will be trained online at a future date.
Coverley maintains that Douglas County’s participation in the 287(g) program is integral to public safety.
“If you’re breaking the law and committing crimes, then we’re going to do everything we can to hold you accountable, if that includes getting you deported,” Coverley said during an interview.
