Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎Something significant changed about American universities this year, and most people haven't noticed. At least 15 Florida public colleges and universities have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, giving campus police federal immigration authority. 🧵
Before these agreements, campus police were campus police. They could call ICE, but had no authority to investigate immigration status themselves. Now that threshold is gone. The campus officer who patrols the quad now carries federal immigration authority.
This isn't ICE raiding a campus. This is something visible, documented, subject to legal challenge. This is the permanent integration of federal immigration authority into daily university policing. That's a qualitative difference that matters enormously.
Florida's 15+ university agreements didn't happen in isolation. The 287(g) partnerships have expanded rapidly under the Trump administration and now include colleges and universities for the first time. Schools are a new frontier for a program with no precedent there.
Since March 2025, at least 15 Florida public universities and colleges, including the University of Florida and Florida State College at Jacksonville, have signed memorandums of agreement for their campus police to collaborate with ICE.
https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2026-04-07/we-teach-at-a-florida-university-that-agreed-to-cooperate-with-ice-and-we-worry-that-it-is-making-our-students-feel-less-safe
https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2026-04-07/we-teach-at-a-florida-university-that-agreed-to-cooperate-with-ice-and-we-worry-that-it-is-making-our-students-feel-less-safe
FIU's chief of police was recorded at a university meeting saying that if ICE requests campus police's help, they would comply. Faculty say they have received no guidance on what to do if enforcement enters their classrooms.
https://theconversation.com/we-teach-at-a-florida-university-that-agreed-to-cooperate-with-ice-and-we-worry-that-it-is-making-our-students-feel-less-safe-277911
https://theconversation.com/we-teach-at-a-florida-university-that-agreed-to-cooperate-with-ice-and-we-worry-that-it-is-making-our-students-feel-less-safe-277911
We teach at a Florida university that agreed to cooperate with ICE – and we worry that it is making our students feel less safe
At least 15 Florida state universities and colleges have signed agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that authorize campus police to carry out immigration enforcement.
An international student on an F-1 or J-1 visa has legal status contingent on every interaction. Any encounter with someone holding immigration authority is now potentially consequential.
Students are pushing back. FAU students marched through campus to protest the police department's ICE partnership, and the FAU Student Government Senate passed a resolution calling for greater transparency from campus police.
https://www.upressonline.com/2026/02/we-wont-stop-until-287-g-agreement-is-terminated-fau-students-participate-in-campus-wide-ice-out-protest/
https://www.upressonline.com/2026/02/we-wont-stop-until-287-g-agreement-is-terminated-fau-students-participate-in-campus-wide-ice-out-protest/
‘We won’t stop until 287 (g) agreement is terminated:’ FAU students participate in campus-wide “ICE Out” protest
Editor’s Note: Clarifying details about the Socialist Alternative were added alongside the addition of Mark Patterson’s full name. On Wednesday, students marched through Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus to protest the FAU Police Department’s ongoing partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Student organizations on campus organized the march, including the FAU College Democrats,...
I call this "carceral creep", the gradual extension of enforcement logic into spaces not formally coded as carceral. Universities were never fully autonomous from state power, but 287(g) represents an explicit breach of whatever buffer existed.
Once these agreements are in place, the university is a different kind of institution. That's the structural question we need to be asking not just whether schools should resist, but what kind of education is possible inside an enforcement space.
Arthur P. Dent@austinkocher From my perspective on the outside, the US post 9/11 has been less appealing as a place to visit and especially to study.
Add to this the administration’s attack on scientific funding and it is doing a stellar job taking the US back to the dark ages.
I don’t see the appeal to attending US institutions as a foreigner. Go to Europe or Canada.
Matt Blaze@austinkocher This makes me grateful for my university's policy on law enforcement requests for information or access, which is that the campus police (and university GC) are responsible for ensuring that any outside agencies actually have valid legal authority to get what they're asking for. https://counsel.georgetown.edu/student_information_guidance/
When Federal or State Law Enforcement Officials Seek Access to Records, Facilities, Employees, or Students - Office of General Counsel
Guidance for Georgetown University Faculty and Staff Georgetown regularly receives requests for student and employee information from external (non-Georgetown University Police Department) law enforcement officials in the normal course of business, e.g., for security clearances required for federal employment, or site visits to confirm international student visa information. Occasionally, outside law enforcement agencies may also […]
Todd Knarr@mattblaze @austinkocher Yep. The problem comes when the authorities are physically there and don't like being told "I don't have the authority to give you access.". Had to do that to Dept. of Energy back in college.
D Ingram@austinkocher Will these same universities bleat and moan when international students stop enrolling and the money train derails?