Making Some Noise
Markwayne Mullin is the worst of our worst. He's also a white supremacist.
In early May, I posted a response to a video of Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin reaffirming that his focus remained on mass deportations — but quietly:
Mullin wants to be quiet about it, which means the rest of us need to be a lot louder.
18 people have died in ICE custody since January 1st — more people died in ICE detention in the first 4 months of 2026 than any full calendar year from 2007 to 2019.
I’ve occasionally reshared that post over the past month, along with some form of the question “What are we doing to make some noise today?”
I guess it’s been a subtle call to action to encourage otherwise hesitant friends and family to start using their voices and engaging in their communities more actively. Because, as organizer + educator Mariame Kaba put it recently, “There’s a lot of work to do and what we need is more people.”
On that note: my 287(g) report + analysis of recent ICE arrest data were both cited in the New York Times1 on Friday, alongside a reference to Mullin’s recent push for the program.
It turns out, we’re making some noise.
The First Mile
The NYT article, from Allison McCann, is a great deep-dive into the massive, ongoing shift in ICE’s 287(g) program, through the lens of the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office. It combines firsthand reporting from McCann, who spent a week in Wyoming observing the office’s operation, with data-driven analysis — including my report.
“Researchers estimate that the share of people detained through any type of 287(g) program rose to about 10 percent in January, up from about 3 percent a year before. The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer detailed questions about the program or share more recent arrest or payment figures.”
As I argued last week, the ‘first mile’ logistics of our deadly deportation system is increasingly the territory of ICE’s local law enforcement partners.
Perverse Benefits
The NYT article also covers the new financial incentives that have helped drive interest and participation in the program:
For the local partners, the program comes with an enticing offer: a one-time payment of $100,000 for new vehicles and $7,500 in equipment funds per certified task force officer. ICE says it will pay the salary and benefits for officers who do immigration work full time, and overtime for up to 25 percent of an officer’s salary.
The enticing offer is what I’ve come to call the 287(g) cash cow. And as you might reasonably expect from a bounty-style government payment system with quota-based incentives and practically no oversight of law enforcement activity, we’re already seeing the ghoulish results. Here’s what I wrote in May, after a Guardian article highlighted a disturbing story from Cincinnati, where out-of-town cops acted on these perverse benefits:
As local cops for the small, all-white town in rural Ohio, they drove roughly 50 miles outside their jurisdiction to an area of Cincinnati with a significant Latine, Spanish-speaking population. The officers tried to enter several schools in the neighborhood, claiming they were conducting '“wellness checks” on behalf of ICE. School administrators who turned them away said the officers had a list of up to 30 students’ names.
How did “wellness checks” to “locate” hundreds of thousands of children become ICE’s responsibility? Effectively — and a reminder here that I am not an attorney — it’s based on an absurd misrepresentation of a broad category of people who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration as ‘unaccompanied children’. This article from Em Knepp at Project Salt Box, from March, includes a breakdown of how ICE is now creating a massive amount of “work” around this.
Fugitives, Wellness, and 287(g)
The “wellness checks” are really just unannounced, in-person visits from ICE officers — and now apparently the agency’s partners in local law enforcement — to confirm the last known address of these minors. And we recently learned, through a service-level agreement with an Idaho sheriff’s office2, that ICE is baking this work into at least some Task Force Model 287(g) agreements:
“The service provider shall provide ERO with hours spent performing ICE enforcement activities for adult and Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)3, for each credentialed TFO assigned to the apprehension.”
A blunt, accurate description: ICE is now including contract language in its 287(g) agreements that could have easily been ripped from a version of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, rewritten in modern legalese:
"That the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the (...) courts, shall be paid for their services the like fees as may be allowed (...) for similar services in other cases; and where such services are rendered exclusively in the arrest, custody, and delivery of the fugitive to the claimant." (1850)
This gets even more concerning when you consider Homeland Security officials showed up at the D.C. offices of several nonprofits this week — unannounced and without a warrant. The organizations visited by DHS, including Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Ayuda, and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), participate in a program run by the federal government4 focused on providing legal services to unaccompanied children.5
As this ABC article confirms, DHS is very much prioritizing this work to “locate” up to 450,000 children:
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for DHS did not confirm the agents’ appearances at the offices, but said the agency “is dedicated to locating the 450,000 unaccompanied children that came in through the border under the Biden administration.”
If this entire situation sounds weird and inappropriate, it’s because it is.
Immigration Enforcement Goes Local
So, back to the NYT article. As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, put it:
It’s a really good piece and if you’re interested in the ways local governments are working with ICE, go read it.
Aaron’s colleague at the American Immigration Council, policy director Nayna Gupta,6 was also quoted, highlighting the downstream impact of DHS messaging around the program:
“The arrest numbers sometimes don’t matter to them if the message and rhetoric is strong enough — that any kind of day-to-day activity for an immigrant could lead to deportation,” said Nayna Gupta, the policy director for the American Immigration Council, a legal advocacy group that supports immigrants.
And, as my new writeup from last week explains, there is a significant correlation between the rise in monthly ‘287(g)-related’ arrests and total ICE arrests over the past year.
ICE's First Mile Contractors
"So, the overall composition in ICE arrest has shifted dramatically over the past year, with 287(g) related arrests representing nearly 10% of arrests in January and February 2026, up from less than 3% in early 2025. And the correlation between this shift and the relative growth in the agency’s total number arrests6 over the same period of time is statistically significant (r=0.86)."
It’s important to note that ICE has refused to provide enforcement numbers for the past 3 months. The most recent data, secured by the Deportation Data Project through a successful FOIA battle, extends only through March 10th. But those records show that program-related arrests jumped from under 3% of total monthly arrests in January 2025 to about 9.5% in January and February 2026.
And Markwayne Mullin clearly agrees re: program efficacy. Here’s what he said at a sheriffs conference last week:
“The 287(g) program can be a tremendous asset to you and to the country,” said Secretary Mullin. “If we had the participation of all the county sheriffs that are in this building right now, think how much faster those arrests would move up. 70% of those that ICE arrests have a criminal background, regardless of what the Left will tell you.”
Now, I’m obligated to point out how the one “statistic“ Mullin will apparently share with the public — that line about 70% of ICE arrestees having a criminal background — is very much a lie.
Here, from Austin Kocher’s analysis of this arrest data in late March:
Immigrants with No Criminal History Continue to Make up Largest Group of ICE Arrests
ICE data continues to show spikes in arrests driven by immigrants with no criminal history.
Or this, from an ABC News report, ‘Just 3% of recent ICE detainees had a violent felony conviction, government data shows’, published this week:
Based on government data analyzed by ABC News as provided by ICE in response to a FOIA requests to the Deportation Data Project and the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, the findings show that immigration enforcement has affected more than 400,000 individuals with no violent criminal history, including parents and spouses of U.S. citizens.
The Worst of Our Worst
If Mullin was willing to share ICE data for the past three months, I’m sure plenty of people (myself included) could whip up a more accurate analysis of what’s happening across his department. Instead, he spent the week making a fool of himself, our federal government, and our entire country.
Like defending the decision to bar a Somali referee from entering the U.S. to work a World Cup match. And this performance alongside his friends at Fox News, praising the racist pogroms in Belfast — and showing how incredibly unqualified he is for public office.
This comes after Mullin tried to berate several Democratic representatives when they pointed to his department’s explicit turn into white supremacist propaganda (and policy) at a recent House Homeland Security committee hearing.
Mullin actually had the nerve to call Rep. Bennie Thompson racist for even referring to the idea — just days after former high-ranking7 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official Greg Bovino spoke at a literal white supremacy conference in Portugal.
Which is all to say: now that Markwayne and I are mentioned in the same New York Times article, I feel it’s my duty to remind everyone that he is a white supremacist, plain and simple. And while he serves as a useful stooge for Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, et al., he is absolutely unfit for his current role.
Markwayne Mullin is the worst of our worst.
‘ICE Wants Local Police to Enforce Immigration Law. These Officers Signed Up.’ Allison McCann, New York Times (June 12, 2026)
'Rural Idaho sheriff’s office got at least $116,000 to help ICE.’ Rachel Spacek, InvestigateWest (April 30, 2026)
According to the same document, here’s how ICE defines this work to its partner agencies:
Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) - any case specifically designated by ICE that was previously in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, subsequently released, and unaccounted for.
And here’s how ICE officials measure work performance for agencies that will help them stalk and harass children, further into the same document:
If the service provider has indicated they will participate in locating UACs within their jurisdiction, all work performed must be in accordance with the UAC Statement of Objectives and Performance Metrics, Responsibilities, and Incentives Overview. These two documents are available upon request and confirmation of participation in locating UACs within their jurisdiction. The two documents will be incorporated into the agreement once participation is verified.
This program has been defunded and effectively dismantled since January 2025.
Note the drastic difference in how federal subcontractors are treated when they provide legal services to children vs. when they’re owned by Elon Musk.
By the way, Nayna, Aaron, and the American Immigration Council team put out this great explainer on the new funding for DHS immigration enforcement that was signed this week.
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