The first time Collier County deputies encountered Eduardo Cervantes Jaraleno, he’d just been caught fleeing a Winn-Dixie with $ 9.48 worth of fish stuffed into shorts.

On a Friday evening in October 2005, the 40-year-old from Mexico was detained by store employees and arrested on a petty theft charge. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to six months of probation, and was released back into the Naples, Fla.-area community.

Deputies did not have a process to determine Cervantes Jaraleno’s immigration status.

When they encountered him again in July 2008, the allegations against him were considerably more serious than swiping a meal — he was accused of raping and molesting a young girl multiple times, threatening to hurt her and telling that her loved ones would hate her if she ever told anyone what he’d done.

Cervantes Jaraleno was arrested again, charged with multiple counts of sexual battery on a child. This time, sheriff’s office leaders had no intention of letting him go.

In between Cervantes Jaraleno’s two arrests, the Collier Sheriff’s Office launched a 287(g) program, a partnership with immigration authorities that empowers local officers to help enforce federal immigration laws. Working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Collier deputies placed an immigration detainer on Cervantes Jaraleno. He eventually pleaded no contest to the charges, was sentenced to ten years in prison, deemed a sexual predator, and has since been deported.

Cervantes Jaraleno is the kind of dangerous criminal Collier authorities were aiming for when they became one of the first agencies in the nation to train deputies to act as immigration agents, part of a program authorized in the mid-1990s by then-President Bill Clinton under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Collier’s first deputies and corrections officers graduated from an ICE cross-training program in September 2007. Since then, the agency says it has placed more than 11,850 immigration detainers on criminal aliens and turned over more than 9,100 inmates to ICE. More than 7,500 of them, including Cervantes Jaraleno, have been deported.

“Our focus has always been with criminals committing crimes that we encounter or investigating individuals who we believe to be committing crimes,” said Collier Sheriff Kevin Rambosk. “We’ve had a very successful program throughout the years.”

Now, more than 17 years after the Collier sheriff’s office launched its program, the Trump administration is eyeing 287(g) as a key part of its aggressive, largest-in-history deportation strategy. In a Day One executive order, President Donald Trump directed the secretary of Homeland Security to authorize local law enforcement, under 287(g), to investigate, apprehend, and detain illegal aliens “to the maximum extent permitted by law.”

Last month, Florida officials directed all 67 of the state’s county sheriff’s offices to enter into 287(g)-task-force agreements with ICE. Larry Keefe, executive director of state’s new immigration-enforcement board, told local authorities to find criminal aliens, “sort them, detain them, and deport them. Total relentlessness, no BS, straight on it.”

While some law enforcement agencies, particularly those in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, refuse to work with ICE in most cases, Rambosk told National Review that his agency’s 287(g) partnership has had a “significant impact” on cutting crime and reducing the local jail population. He believes it’s made all members of his community, including immigrants, safer.

And he believes other agencies should consider signing on in some form.

“If you are charged with the responsibility for the health, safety, and welfare of your residents,” he said, “and there is a program available to you to identify, hold, and refer individuals who have committed crimes in your community . . . and you do not take advantage of it, you are promoting more victimization of your residents and an un-safer community. And I know a lot of people are not going to like that, but that is true.”

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, called Collier’s 287(g) program a model: “It’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.”

Rambosk said he wants his agency to have the authority to do even more.

A previous 287(g) model, which was dismantled by former President Barack Obama’s administration, allowed trained detectives to proactively investigate illegal immigrants in the community and to build cases against them before they commit crimes or victimize anyone locally. Rambosk said his understanding is that ICE’s new task force model only restores limited authority to his deputies, though there appears to be some disconnect between federal and state ICE officials and local leaders about that.

He said he “absolutely” sees his 287(g) partnership as part of the Trump administration’s bigger, national deportation efforts.

“We’re watching what’s playing out around the nation and around the state,” he said, “and we just look at one another and go, ‘Well, we’ve been doing that and we’ve been doing more than that for all these years.’”

Standing Up a ‘Necessary’ 287(g) Program

The Collier sheriff’s office’s initial decision to partner with ICE was tied to a snapshot they took of their jail in early 2007. About a quarter of their jail inmates at the time admitted they were in the country illegally, according to local news reports. Jail leaders later determined that the percentage was actually closer to a third.

Rambosk’s predecessor told a local safety council at the time that housing illegal aliens in jail was costing the agency about $9 million annually. Removing them, not just from the county, but from the country altogether, would ultimately save local taxpayers money, sheriff’s office leaders believed.

That August, about 25 Collier deputies and jail officers began 287(g) training, a month-long education on topics such as immigration law, civil rights, and intercultural relations.

Collier started out with two 287(g) models — a jail model that allows trained officers to utilize federal databases and tools to identify illegal immigrants booked into the jail, and a law-enforcement model that allowed for more proactive efforts.

The law-enforcement model allowed 287(g)-trained detectives to investigate illegal immigrants, including gang members, who had criminal records but hadn’t yet committed a known crime in Collier County. The detectives would submit their background reports to ICE, which could authorize detainers allowing trained deputies to pick up the aliens.

The Obama administration put the kibosh on that model in 2012. The Collier sheriff’s office has submitted a request to have it renewed by the Trump administration.

“There’s a lot going on right now. Our request is there,” Rambosk said. “They need to review it and determine, is this part of their program? I’m sure it’s going to be.”

Rambosk said his understanding is that the task-force model being promoted by state officials isn’t the same as the law-enforcement model his agency used to have. Rather than proactively investigate criminal aliens, the new model would allow 287(g)-trained deputies to detain illegal immigrants they contact during regular law-enforcement encounters who already have ICE holds in the National Crime Information Center database.

“Today, without training our deputies, we can’t hold that person — only ICE can,” he said.

Attempts to get clarity from ICE about the differences between the old and new 287(g) models were not successful, though immigration experts who spoke with National Review said they believe the Trump administration intends to give locals investigative authority.

Still, Rambosk said a model allowing deputies to detain immigrants they encounter with ICE holds is “a necessary thing” because ICE agents can’t respond to every field encounter.

“If somebody can’t get there from ICE, then we will have to let them go,” he said. “We do not want to be letting people go who have an ICE hold.”

Rambosk said enforcement under the current task-force model could only occur after lawful, law-enforcement encounters or interactions, including traffic tops.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going through the farm fields checking paperwork,” he said. “This means there was a reason — we got a call for service, a dispute, a fight, an affray.”

Rambosk said he supports Trump’s vision and border czar Tom Homan’s immigration policies, and is willing to go as far as the law allows.

“We’re carrying out what we are lawfully permitted to do. Right now, we’re not permitted to do business checks, documentation checks,” he said. “That could change.”

Allegations of Racism and Fear

Since its inception, the 287(g) program has faced intense pushback from critics. The American Civil Liberties Union alleges the programs lead to racial profiling and the targeting of low-level offenders, and they create unnecessary fear in immigrant communities.

Several law enforcement agencies have dropped their 287(g) programs over the years, many after the racial-justice protests and riots of 2020. Some agencies say they’ve dropped their programs to refocus their efforts on local issues. Others have canceled their programs due to legal threats or political pressure from the ACLU, sometimes both.

This month, the city council in Fort Myers, Fla., just north of Collier County, rejected a 287(g) agreement over concerns about racial profiling. The move drew a rebuke from Governor Ron DeSantis, who said on X that “when it comes to immigration — the days of inaction are over,” warning local governments to “Govern yourselves accordingly.” The Fort Myers council reversed course on Friday and agreed unanimously to support the ICE partnership.

To build support for the 287(g) program in Collier County, Rambosk said his agency invested heavily in community outreach — meeting with community leaders and service providers, and partnering with a radio station popular with many immigrants. Since launching the program in 2007, the agency says it has sponsored 896 applications for U visas for crime victims who are willing to help authorities investigate and prosecute their victimizers.

“We said, ‘A victim is a victim is a victim. If you are a victim, you come and report it to us,’” Rambosk said. “And then we have the ability to protect you.”

Vaughan with the Center for Immigration Studies said agencies that develop trust with their immigrant communities can often get buy-in for 287(g) efforts targeting criminals. Immigrants — legal and even illegal —”don’t want to live with criminals any more than anyone else does,” she said.

Rambosk denied that his agency’s program leads to racial profiling.

“Whoever gets arrested is asked where their citizenship is from,” he said, regardless of their race or appearance. “If it’s not from the United States, they go to the 287(g) process.”

While Rambosk says his aim is to deport bad guys — “we’re talking about people that are taking advantage of our residents” — local critics have charged that many of the people caught up in the program aren’t serious criminals, but are arrested instead for misdemeanors, traffic offenses, and non-criminal immigration violations.

There is some truth there. Not everyone subject to 287(g) inspection is a hardened gang member or career criminal. Every non-U.S.-born person booked into the Collier jail is subject to 287(g) questioning, regardless of whether they’re facing a major felony or low-level misdemeanor, and regardless of whether the charges they’re booked on stand up in court.

“We have to go back to the first question: Are you in the country with inspection or without, are you here lawfully or not? I can’t change that,” Rambosk said. “If you are here unlawfully and you come through our system of government, our process, that’s got to fall within the Constitution of the United States, then yes, ICE is going to be [notified].”

A ‘Win-Win’ for ICE and Locals?

Since Trump resumed office, the number of 287(g) partnerships has started ticking up.

As of mid-March, 81 agencies in 23 states have jail-model agreements with ICE, up from 60 agencies in 16 states in December. ICE also has warrant-service agreements — allowing local corrections officers to serve civil immigration documents to detainees — with 150 agencies in 24 states, up from 75 agencies in eleven states in December.

There are also 148 agencies in 18 states that have signed on so far to the Trump administration’s renewed and revised 287(g) task-force model.

But that is still just a sliver of the roughly 18,000 state and local policing agencies in the country, including county sheriff’s office, local police departments, and state patrols.

The National Sheriffs’ Association has long supported 287(g), and its executive director, Jonathan Thompson, told National Review the program is “an excellent tool for ICE to get bad people off the streets.” But there are reasons why more agencies haven’t signed up.

For one, he said, the program can be costly and time-consuming given the required training and compliance inspections. Add to that, local agencies are still struggling to recruit, particularly corrections officers, who have a tough job to begin with.

“Not a great recipe for wanting to do other things,” Thompson said. “You get a lot of people say, I’m not doing federal government work. I don’t want it.”

But Vaughan said 287(g) programs can be a “classic win-win” for ICE and local agencies, which have different but overlapping priorities.

The Trump administration has been frustrated so far with the pace of arrests and deportations, according to the New York Times. Homan, the border czar, has told the president that “we need to increase the arrests,” according to the paper.

“The problem is too great for ICE to handle on its own,” Vaughan said. “ICE officers do not patrol the streets. They don’t know where the criminal aliens are. . . . Whereas, local police and sheriffs know who is committing crimes in their communities.”

In addition to slower-than-expected arrests, the administration is also dealing with a shortage of detention beds, and it has struggled to secure enough airplanes and deportation agreements with other countries, according to the Times.

“That is a real concern. What it boils down to is how much money [ICE is] given by Congress to do this,” said Vaughan, who would like more money earmarked specifically for 287(g), “because that is the most cost-effective way for ICE to meet its goals.”

According to the sheriff’s office, since it implemented 287(g), its daily jail population has plummeted from an average of about 1,250 inmates in 2007 to about 750 today, all while Southwest Florida continues to be one of the fastest growing regions in the country. Collier’s crime rate has also dropped to its lowest on record, though its crime rate has been dropping consistently since at least the mid-90s, a decade before it launched 287(g).

Collier’s tough-on-crime approach coupled with its 287(g) partnership with ICE sends a message to potential lawbreakers and may also deter some illegal immigrants from settling in the area in the first place, Rambosk said.

“I think if any community takes a position against crime generally, I think people are not going to want to go there to commit crimes,” he said. “And if you know that we have a 287(g) program, it probably does dissuade people who are here illegally. . . . I think it makes them think a lot more about committing a crime here.”

Ryan Mills is an enterprise and media reporter at National Review. He previously worked for 14 years as a breaking news reporter, investigative reporter, and editor at newspapers in Florida. Originally from Minnesota, Ryan lives in the Fort Myers area with his wife and two sons.

Reprinted with Permission from National Review – By Ryan Mills

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.