COLUMBIA — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham wants to create a grant rewards program to incentivize law enforcement agencies in South Carolina to collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and do so quicker.
Joined by Gov. Henry McMaster at a meeting with 10 Midlands-area sheriffs, Graham, R-S.C., said the proposal could boost departments struggling with budgets and officer retention.
“It’s in the federal government’s interest to have more local law enforcement help with illegal immigration,” Graham told reporters Oct. 2.
“And to those states, cities and counties that do that, you will be rewarded,” he continued. “Congress felt it was necessary to put more money on the table to keep Border Patrol and ICE agents in business and to hire more of them. I think the same is true for local law enforcement.”
Graham and the group met to discuss the proposal, which would ideally funnel federal money into departments that agree to work with ICE under its 287(g) program.
That program, backed by the Department of Homeland Security, designates local officers to perform federal immigration law enforcement functions in their own backyards by helping identify undocumented immigrants during the course of their everyday duties.
Multiple law enforcement agencies across South Carolina, including the State Law Enforcement Division and the Department of Public Safety, have already signed such agreements without the incentives. Graham hopes the proposed incentive programs can help push other jurisdictions to sign up faster, citing what he characterized as an ongoing financial crunch for law enforcement agencies across the state.
While ICE has sought to entice would-be recruits with massive benefits such as $50,000 signing bonuses, local law enforcement has not had such support, even as they are seen as a potential tip of the spear in what President Donald Trump has characterized as the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.
Graham said such a program could provide a stabilizing influence for local police while allowing that work to take place.
According to the South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police, many police departments are grappling with historic staffing shortages. As of 2023, vacancy rates in some state-level departments exceeded 49 percent, according to the S.C. Department of Administration, with annual turnover rates around 38 percent.
Departments that do more, Graham said, will be eligible for more money.
“We’re going to reward people who participate,” he said. “The more you participate, the more rewards you get. So the more you willing to do, the more you’ll be eligible for.”
There could be pitfalls. Critics of the cooperation agreements have expressed concern incentivizing small town police officers to focus on immigrations enforcement could lead to mission creep that could potentially divert resources away from community policing and other local law enforcement actions.
Previous reporting by The Post and Courier also found that local operating agreements can erode trust between law enforcement and Latino populations, potentially leaving them unwilling to engage with police on non-immigration crime.
Other groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, argue 287(g) agreements could actually prove a fiscal burden on local governments, citing substantial cost overruns that resulted in the cancellation of Charleston County’s cooperating agreement with ICE in 2021.
“Americans have been watching in horror this year as ICE agents increasingly seek to act as masked secret police for a violent, unaccountable, and openly racist mass deportation regime,” Jace Woodrum, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said in a statement.
“It is unconscionable for local law enforcement leaders not only to endorse ICE’s daily abuses, but to join in those abuses as well,” Woodrum added.
Law enforcement who had previously engaged with the program say it’s no different than the work they’d regularly performed for years and just another box to check in the course of their regular policework.
“It’s just making it a lot easier and a lot faster than it was under the old way,” Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster told reporters. “It’s no different. We still reported illegal aliens that committed crime to ICE. It’s just making it move a lot faster and a lot smoother than it had in the past.”