“How’s my driving?” the semi-truck bed asks in Spanish.
On a recent afternoon in eastern Oklahoma, a state trooper was interested in a driver.
Police officers can stop such commercial vehicles for unannounced safety checks.
Why I wrote this
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has agreements to effectively represent state and local law enforcement agencies and also serve as immigration agents. The doubling of forces allows authorities to continue arresting an increasing number of people entering the country.
It’s scorching hot outside. Inside the air-conditioned car, the officer opens a laptop and examines the driver’s credentials and digital record of hours worked. The man, who is from Mexico, speaks good English and apparently has a visa, the officer said.
There are no obvious safety violations. However, the officer passes the driver’s information to a contact at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Shortly afterward, ICE told officers that the driver was legally in the United States.
The red and blue flashing lights will flash. The cop drives off.
According to the Monitor’s analysis, one in three people lives in a state where state law enforcement can act as immigration officials under an agreement with the federal government known as 287(g). Immigration law is federal law. But the Trump administration, powered by billions of dollars from Congress, is significantly expanding these partnerships as it increases the number of arrests.
Approximately 730 highway patrol officers in Oklahoma have earned ICE certification, according to state officials. That’s the bulk of our strength.
One day in early September, Monitor joined two Oklahoma State Troopers on patrol. In addition to withholding their names for safety reasons, the Highway Patrol asked monitors not to take mugshots of federal agents or arrestees.
Most police officers require some kind of traffic violation to justify stopping a driver, such as speeding or an expired sign. But once stopped, they can question people about their immigration status and coordinate with ICE about possible arrests.
Supporters of the policy say it’s for public safety. The new immigration checkpoint is another way police officers will protect the safety of law-abiding citizens, state officials said.
Immigration advocates say these expanded powers create fear and lead to racial profiling.
oklahoma in washington
In Washington, D.C., an Oklahoma native leads the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE.
Secretary Markwayne Mullin is a former Sooner state senator. Lance Schroyer, President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next ICE director, is a former major in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and is credited with helping the state deploy 287(g). Well, Mr. Schroyer. became Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol announced it has apprehended about 2,200 illegal immigrants since the state signed the 287(g) agreement in February 2025, a month after Trump returned to office.
“We want to make sure the drivers are trained, we want to make sure the drivers that come here are vetted. We know what their intentions are,” said Lt. Mark Southall, a patrol spokesman. “Nobody, no nation, knows the details of what a truck bomb can do.” In 1995, an American citizen detonated a truck bomb in Oklahoma City, killing more than 160 people.
The agency emphasizes that police do not decide who to detain for ICE. If an officer suspects someone is in the country illegally, they can call ICE and ask them to decide whether to arrest them, and the officer will do so. But these state officials have significant discretion over when to stop commercial vehicles in particular.
“We’re not deciding to hug someone,” he says. “We’re just doing our job on behalf of ICE.”
Those taken into custody are taken to an ICE facility or to a county sheriff’s office that works with ICE. The federal government reimburses states for police officers’ time through the 287(g) program.
The Trump administration reinstated what is known as the task force model within the 287(g) program, which ICE ended more than a decade ago. 2012, ICE announced 287(g) task force agreements will be suspended after the Department of Justice found that some local ICE partners engaged in discriminatory enforcement practices, including racial profiling.
ICE requires participants to have at least two years of law enforcement experience and complete a 40-hour online training course. Topics include immigration and civil rights law, ICE’s use of force policy, detention procedures, grievance procedures and “cross-cultural awareness,” ICE spokeswoman Sarah Loicano said in an email.
Some random stops are justified
Outside the McIntosh County Sheriff’s Office in Eufaula, where the Monitor ride began, three men with their hands and feet bound sit silently in metal chairs. One person is shaking his chain violently and bouncing his feet restlessly. Monitors were not allowed to speak to detainees.
The men wait in the hot and humid weather to be processed. Eventually, ICE agents from the Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Investigation removed one of the men.
Loicano, the ICE spokesman, named the Mexican man who was one of seven people arrested during the Sept. 3 operation and said ICE had previously removed him four times.
According to a criminal re-entry complaint filed six days later in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, a police officer pulled the man over after seeing a defective tail light and speeding.
After the driver presented Mexican consular identification, the officers contacted ICE.
Some of the arrests occurred as a result of routine safety inspections conducted by U.S. Department of Transportation agency “size and weight” officers. This authority predates the new immigration authorities by decades.
Officers who are qualified to conduct these federal safety inspections are legally allowed to stop commercial vehicles even if the driver is following all traffic rules.
According to the Highway Patrol, 48 officers have this authority in addition to their ICE status.
Partnerships vary
Police officers are not the only law enforcement agencies eligible for ICE in Oklahoma, and federal agencies have more than 100 agreements. But how that plays out on the ground could vary by county.
This summer, nine of Tulsa County’s more than 300 sheriff’s deputies were selected for the task force model. Those selected will interdict drugs and pursue other crimes.
Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado already has a jail-based agreement with ICE that typically allows officers to identify immigrants for deportation. But he has resisted assigning patrols to immigration authorities.
“Instilling fear in the community by calling us is counterproductive. … We have to have that trust,” says the Republican sheriff, the son of immigrants. “We serve everyone, whether you are in the country illegally or not.”
Immigration advocates have long expressed concerns that the 287(g) program encourages illegal targeting of suspects based on race.
Funding from federal programs “is a trap for government agencies, exposing them to racial profiling and other abuses and exposing them to costly lawsuits,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a paper. report.
Lt. Southall said Oklahoma State Police are stopping people “from all over the world.” Not a specific group.
“We don’t use racial profiling,” he says. “We’re just stopping the car.”
Not so many stops.
“Be safe.”
Another member cruises down U.S. 69 drinking an energy drink. A small figurine of Jesus tucked into a sun visor watches from above. On the dashboard, the radar chirps. The faster the car, the higher the pitch.
Without a quota to meet, the officer said he personally tries to stop about 10 to 15 cars a day. Police officers typically don’t ask about immigration status, he said. However, certain indicators, such as lack of ID, can raise these questions.
The officer spotted a white Nissan Rogue and accelerated. The car was following another car too closely, he said.
“You have to stay 200 feet away. It’s two car lengths behind you,” he told the driver as he stopped on the side of the highway.
The driver leaves a warning and leaves. There is no suspicion of immigration.
“Please be safe, okay?”
The cop drives off.