from the mass-deportation-prophylactics dept

Working With ICE Is So Toxic, ICE Is Now Offering Liability Insurance To Local Police Officers

If you’re worried about the bad optics of working with ICE, the federal government is here to help subsidize your recovery from mass deportation conjunctivitis. If you’re worried about the personal negative side effects of buddying up to ICE’s masked kidnapping squads, the administration is here to assure cops that it might cover some of the legal costs of doing business with ICE.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pitching a plan to help shield local police officers who make immigration arrests from possible financial consequences if they are accused of on-duty misconduct.

The agency is proposing to subsidize liability insurance for state and local officers who are trained and deputized to enforce federal immigration laws, according to a planning document published Friday.

This offer is not valid in sanctuary cities or anywhere cops shops haven’t signed agreements to do ICE’s detention/arrest work for it. To get this extra coverage, law enforcement agencies will have to sign 287(g) agreements. These agreements make local law enforcement agencies part of mass deportation machinery. It requires agencies to hold arrested migrants and tell ICE to come pick them up. It also allows local cops to act as immigration officers by permitting them to perform arrests using ICE administrative “warrants.”

That word is in scare quotes because administrative warrants are just pieces of paper that say ICE knows of someone subject to a removal order. They are not reviewed by magistrate judges. And, unlike what ICE would have you believe, they do not authorize searches of private property.

This is where some of ICE’s (new) billions of dollars might be going. ICE officers don’t need this sort of insurance because they’re defended and indemnified by the federal government. (And they don’t need it anyway because the Supreme Court has made it pretty much impossible to successfully sue a federal officer for rights violations.)

Local cops aren’t nearly as immune as federal officers, so they might appreciate some insurance coverage in the extremely unlikely chance they are sued successfully for violating rights while doing ICE’s work for it. But the payout seems pretty fucking low considering ICE now commands the largest budget of any federal law enforcement agency.

Under the plan, officers would purchase insurance covering up to $500,000 in personal liability, which typically funds legal fees, settlements and judgments. Officers would be reimbursed up to $250 annually — roughly what the insurance is expected to cost.

The administration that claims to love cops (that love ICE) the most, this minimal payout should be viewed as insulting. First, the administration “allows” officers to spend their own money to purchase insurance coverage they wouldn’t otherwise need if their employing agencies had decided signing a 287(g) agreement wasn’t worth the trouble.

Second, tossing cops $250 a year does a whole lot of nothing when it comes to premiums for this specific sort of insurance. And, in other cases, partnering with ICE will automatically void these policies.

Pennsylvania’s risk pool, for instance, recently made clear that it would exclude “proactive immigration enforcement activities” from coverage, forcing several participating counties to search for other insurance options.

Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe said he found insurance to cover his 13 deputies participating in the program at a cost of $20,000 in annual premiums.

In the first instance, there is no coverage to be had even if the DHS is willing to cough up a measly $250 a year for ICE buddy cops. In the second instance, a local agency is paying $1,538/year per officer to cover officers it has willingly lent to ICE’s anti-migrant activities. That means it’s still on the hook for the other $1,250/year. $3,250 (for 13 officers) looks like a down payment, rather than a meaningful contribution.

But the facts on the ground don’t bother Sheriff Slupe, apparently. He’s sure Trump will come riding the rescue with a fat stack of greenbacks.

“I want to make sure the guys are additionally covered, so we had to spend the money,” he said, adding that federal funding would cover the cost.

Technically almost true, if you read this to mean the federal government will cover an almost-insignificant portion of the cost. But it’s weird to see Sheriff Slupe offer to pitch in on immigration enforcement when his agency was thrown under the bus a bit following an alleged assassination attempt targeting Trump during his 2024 election campaign.

It’s all very stupid and unnecessary. It’s already pretty difficult to successfully sue law enforcement officers, thanks to the ever-expanding coverage of the qualified immunity doctrine (not actually a law!). Furthermore, the federal government’s pitch for additional liability insurance makes you wonder which Trump donors might profit from this push for new premiums. ICE already claims any officers participating in the 287(g) program are “acting under the color of federal authority,” which vastly increases the level of lawsuit immunity. Going even further, the federal government has already pretty much promised local law enforcement officers they’ll be well-defended should they be sued for boarding the ICE bang bus.

The agreements also state that local officers who face civil lawsuits can ask the US Department of Justice to represent them, and that ICE will generally support their requests. 

Adding all of this up, we can only assume none of this adds up. The stipend is too small. The government says local officers should present themselves as federal officers in court proceedings. And these officers seem unlikely to ever need to hire their own representation should they be sued for their ICE-adjacent activities. And now ICE is encouraging participants in the 287(g) program to buy insurance they’ll likely never need or, in some cases, not be able to use due to limits enacted by insurance providers.

It comes across as a blend of stupid and performative. As such, it fits in perfectly with this administration’s MO. But if I were a cop doing ICE’s dirty work, I’d be demanding full coverage paid with federal tax dollars, rather than assume this cock-up of a hybrid will actually do anything when I’ve been sued by competent plaintiffs.