Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown has said she does not plan to pursue an agreement with ICE.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
The Dallas County sheriff must cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or face legal consequences, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned Wednesday.
In a letter to Sheriff Marian Brown, Paxton called her decision not to seek a cooperative partnership with ICE “troubling” and “not yours to make.” He provided a deadline of June 1 for Brown to begin the process.
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“I will not let the people of Dallas County pay the price for your dereliction of duty,” Paxton wrote.
Brown said in a statement the sheriff’s office already “maintains an active working relationship with ICE” and that it “remains committed to continued compliance with applicable state and federal law.”
As it seeks to deport roughly 1 million people a year, the Trump administration revived a decades-old program that allows local law enforcement officers to interrogate immigrants and detain them for potential deportation. Typically, that authority is reserved for federal agents. Since President Donald Trump took office, ICE has expanded the program to hundreds of agencies across the country.
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Texas lawmakers last year passed a bill requiring every Texas sheriff’s office with a jail to sign an agreement, formally called a 287(g), with the federal government.
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Sheriff’s offices must sign an agreement by Dec. 1, 2026 under the law, not June 1, Brown noted in her statement.
Tarrant, Denton and Ellis counties have signed agreements, as have hundreds of other law enforcement agencies across Texas. Dallas County has so far declined to do so.
Related: Here are the North Texas law enforcement agencies that have agreements with ICE
Late last year, Brown said she did not plan to pursue an agreement. “No, there are no additional efforts that we’re going to put into it,” she said at an event at the University of North Texas at Dallas.
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On Wednesday, Brown clarified that she meant she did not view a formal agreement necessary because her office already works with federal authorities.
The program has three models: two are based in jails, and the third is a task force model that authorizes local officers to perform certain immigration enforcement actions in the field.
Immigration advocates and some officials say partnerships with ICE could harm public safety by making immigrants fearful of seeking law enforcement assistance.
To recruit agencies, ICE offers additional funding to those that sign agreements. The city of Dallas turned down $25 million in funding last year to partner with federal immigration authorities.
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Last month, Abbott threatened to withhold $32 million in public safety funds if Dallas did not repeal police department rules around collaboration with ICE. He issued similar warnings to Houston and Austin.
Dallas revised its rules to allow — but not require — officers to ask people who are lawfully detained or arrested about their immigration status, work with federal immigration authorities and share immigration-status information with them.
City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said the new rules would align with state law while “continuing effective policing, building and maintaining the community’s trust and retaining officer discretion that is clearly defined within legal parameters.”