The 287(g) program allows city and county law enforcement agencies to conduct limited immigration enforcement policies in partnership with ICE, extending a few of the federal agencies' responsibilities to local officers and granting them greater access to national databases.
Keller is now the largest of a very small handful of Texas cities to enter the agreement. Senate Bill 8, which passed in the 89th Legislative Session, requires all Texas counties with more than 100,000 residents to participate in the program.
“Never surrender your values. Never back down from doing what’s right… Screening individuals who have been arrested and detained in our jail and aiding in executing warrants for criminals isn’t just common sense, but it is sound public policy. When we said public safety was non-negotiable, we meant it,” Keller Mayor Armin Mizani posted on Facebook the morning after the vote.
Mizani, a staunch conservative gearing up for a campaign to secure the Texas House seat vacated by Southlake-based Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, first floated entering the 287(g) program in July.
The program has three enforcement models. The most generous version allows municipality officers to identify, process and arrest individuals suspected of immigration violations during routine activities. Keller Police Department Deputy Chief Jared Lemoine told the city council that the department, having 53 sworn-in officers, was not pursuing this option.
Instead, the city will enter the warrant service officer model, which allows officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on individuals subject to deportation already within their custody. The program does not allow officers to make immigration-related offenses on the street, nor does it allow officers to interrogate an individual regarding their immigration status.
"Opting into this program will mean minor adjustments to the responsibilities of our detention officers, but our department’s priorities and philosophies will remain unchanged," the Keller Police Department said in a statement to WFAA. "Our employees are committed to upholding the rule of law and serving the community with respect and empathy. That includes those within our care at the Keller Regional Detention Center."
Existing policies, which have been observed since 2013, allow Keller Regional Detention Center (KRDC) to share fingerprint data with ICE officials, who flag detainees for immigration violations. ICE also operates a 24/7 command center, fielding calls from officers who have concerns about detainees' immigration status. The new program will streamline this process.
So far, in 2025, KRDC has detained 1,420 persons and contacted the hotline 18 times. Comparatively, the ICE command center was contacted 13 times in 2024 and only 7 times in 2023, so in only eight months, the city has lapped the year’s prior.
The program requires additional training, but Lemoine told the council it would not require significant restructuring and that ICE oversight would be minimal.
Community Concerns
Dozens of local residents appeared before the council to discourage them from voting in favor of the program, warning them of its implications and the city culture it would create despite its currently limited capacity. However, public testimonies were ineffective, as all six members of the council and the mayor voted to approve the contract.“You will make our community a part of the hate culture growing fast in our country,” one resident told the board ahead of their vote.
Other residents expressed concerns about stretching police officers' constraints, claiming that increasing police officer pay would be a better use of community resources.
“Despite [existing] constraints, Keller PD is expected to cover a city of nearly 45,000 people, and yet we're not paying our officers fair market wages compared to surrounding cities,” said Andrew Sternke, a concerned Keller resident. “Adding to the burden of 287(g) only makes this worse.”
Sternke and several other speakers pointed to the ethical issues surrounding ICE's legal practices. Many speakers critiqued the mask-wearing practices of ICE officers, which have attracted nationwide scrutiny.
“Beyond staffing and logistics, there's a deeper and far more alarming issue, the violation of constitutional rights,” said Sternke. “Across the country, ICE has a documented history of violating due process protections guaranteed by the Fifth and Eighth Amendments… If we bring 287(g) into Keller, we're opening the door for those same abuses to happen right here in our neighborhoods, in front of our schools, and in front of our children.”
Other residents worried that introducing 287(g) into the community was just a toe dip in foreboding waters.
“Does the city of Keller get paid for every person that gets arrested and carted away? What happens when ICE gets tired of arresting [undocumented residents] and starts arresting US citizens or Keller homeowners? What happens when ICE starts arresting Democrats, Jews, people with non-white skin, or people with funny-sounding last names?,” Alan Hochstein asked the board, referring to the discriminatory profiling perpetrated by the Nazi regime, which has been continuously drawn as a parallel to the current administration.
