Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham talk to sheriffs during a meeting Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, at the Sheriff’s Association building in Columbia. (Photo courtesy of the SC Governor’s Office)
COLUMBIA — Local law enforcement would get bonuses for helping find and arrest immigrants living in the country illegally under a grant program U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday he planned to propose.
Nationwide, the number of law enforcement agencies signing cooperation agreements with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has skyrocketed since the Trump administration encouraged participation in the 287(g) program — named for the section of a 1996 law that authorized it — and revived the “task force” model earlier this year, despite concerns about racial profiling from advocacy groups.
As of Thursday, 20 sheriffs and five police chiefs had inked agreements. As had the State Law Enforcement Division and the Department of Public Safety, which operates the state Highway Patrol, according to the program’s website.
The tally includes three South Carolina counties — Horry, York and Lexington — that initially signed agreements under the so-called “jail enforcement model” more than a decade ago.
The counties and cities that agreed to help out the federal government took on extra responsibilities with no promise of more funding, even as they face staffing shortages, said Graham, a Republican who spent Thursday talking to sheriffs about the problems they faced.
The massive tax policy and spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law July 4 included funding to reimburse law enforcement agencies for salaries and benefits of officers hired to carry out the agreements, as well as quarterly bonuses based on the number of immigrants an agency finds who don’t have permission to be in the country.
Graham, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants to take that a step further, creating a national fund of $1 billion, which participating states, counties and cities could use to give officers bonuses. The amount of funding would depend on the type of 287(g) agreement the agencies entered into, Graham said.
Sheriffs and police chiefs can choose any of three types of agreements. Officers operating under the so-called “task force model” can challenge a person’s immigration status during their normal police work. The two state agencies participating have opted into this agreement. As have a dozen local law enforcement departments.
U.S. Sen Lindsey Graham, center, and Gov. Henry McMaster speak to reporters alongside sheriffs about a federal immigration program Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
Another agreement trains officers to serve warrants on illegal immigrants who have been arrested, and the third lets local agencies detain them for deportation if arrested for another crime, according to the program website.
During the first seven months of the year, only two counties, Horry and York, reported using the agreement, according to monthly updates compiled by the U.S. Immigrants and Customs Enforcement. The most recent report, issued in July, came before only two new participants signed on: the state Department of Public Safety and the Olanta Police Department, which serves a town of about 550.
Part of Graham’s goal is to get the state enough money to do away with the requirement that officers who have reached retirement age but still want to work first take a year off in order to collect both their retirement and salary. That law, written into the state budget, forces longtime officers to leave already understaffed police departments, he said.
“These are the cream of the crop,” Graham said. “These are the best of the best.”
Newberry County, which has an agreement with the federal government to serve warrants on illegal immigrants, has lost three of its top officers in the past year because they reached retirement age, said Sheriff Lee Foster.
All three found higher-paying jobs for private companies during their year off, keeping them from wanting to return to the department, Foster said.
“I said, ‘If you were able to retire and return, would you have stayed and served the people of Newberry County?’” Foster said. “And each one unequivocally said they would have stayed.”
Getting rid of that law would require about $150 million, Graham estimated.
“I want to help fix that problem, and the way to do it is to have the federal government reward states like South Carolina, who help the federal government with one of its biggest problems, illegal immigration,” Graham said.
With the government shut down as senators butt heads over temporary funding, any proposal Graham might make is far from reality. A quicker solution might come from a similar state-funded program, Gov. Henry McMaster said, without giving details.
“This plugs a gap in our system,” McMaster said. “As we grow — and we are growing, and more people want to invest in our people here — we’ve got to keep this state safe, and this takes us a long way toward doing that.”
Advocates for the American Civil Liberties Union disagree that the agreements make the state safer. Instead, illegal immigrants may be less likely to report crimes out of fear of being questioned and deported, said Dulce López, who oversees the human rights organization’s strategy on immigrant rights.
“It erodes public trust,” López said.
The “task force model,” especially, could lead to unconstitutional racial profiling as officers search for people who they believe might be illegal immigrants, López said.
“For South Carolina to encourage this type of policing is very concerning,” López said.