The South Carolina statehouse is seen on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — A proposal requiring more than two dozen law enforcement agencies in South Carolina to sign agreements with federal immigration officials advanced to the House floor over Democrats’ objections.
The House Judiciary Committee voted 14-8 Tuesday along party lines on a bill mandating all policing agencies that operate an overnight lockup to participate in U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program. They can enter any of several agreement options in the program named for the section of a 1996 law that authorized it.
Agencies that refuse to sign up wouldn’t lose their share of state aid. However, administrative penalties would include loss of Department of Public Safety grants.
Of the 45 counties the mandate would apply to, 20 have already signed agreements. Five of those have entered two different types; 15 towns or cities also have written agreements, as do two state agencies: the State Law Enforcement Division and Department of Public Safety.
The bill temporarily stalled last month over concerns about the potential costs to local law enforcement.
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In response, legislators added an exemption for departments that can show an agreement would be a financial strain.
“There could be some real small police departments or sheriff’s departments, frankly, who are like, we can barely do what we need to do. We can’t afford this,” Rep. Travis Moore, the bill’s main sponsor, told the SC Daily Gazette. “That’s an off-ramp for them.”
His bill has 49 GOP co-sponsors, who include the chamber’s leaders. So, it’s almost certain to win approval by the full House. Its fate in the Senate is unclear.
Rep. Jerry Govan said he worried the agreements would lead to officers targeting people because of their race.
“People are being swept up because, frankly, they’re from the Latino community,” said the Orangeburg Democrat.
Rep. Spencer Wetmore, D-Folly Beach, said she believed the mandate would erode hard-won trust between law enforcement and their communities.
“Law enforcement agencies may not want the communities where they’re trying to build trust to see them cooperating with and working with ICE agents,” she said, echoing a concern made by opponents who spoke during a hearing last month.
The deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January, fueled nationwide anger over ICE enforcement tactics.
Last month, President Donald Trump told governors that future immigration surges would depend on their support, they said following a closed-door meeting in Washington. Two weeks later, Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
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Her replacement, former U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, was sworn in during a ceremony Tuesday in the Oval Office, while Democrats in Congress continued their refusal to fund the agency without more changes to immigration enforcement policies.
The partial government shutdown is causing hours-long lines at airports across the nation, as Transportation Security Administration officers continue to go unpaid.
But ICE is unaffected due to an infusion of money Congress provided the division of Homeland Security through 2029 as part of the massive tax and spending package Trump signed last July.
Amid the congressional sparring over ICE, Republican legislators in Columbia contend more cooperation is the better course. Republicans have blamed so-called sanctuary policies in blue states for the violence.
Rep. William Bailey, R-Little River, called the Minneapolis deaths a “worst case scenario.” He said local cooperation with ICE reduces immigration agents’ need to find and arrest people in their communities.
Moore, R-Roebuck, said the goal is to make South Carolinians safer. “There are plenty of people who are committing crimes in our communities, many of whom have active warrants of removal from this country, who are victimizing our fellow citizens,” said the sponsor.
He pointed to law enforcement’s options under his bill: Two types of the 287g agreements involve people already arrested and in jail for other reasons.
“I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request to expect those detention officers to search a federal database while that person is in custody and to see whether there is a federal order for removal or federal arrest,” Moore said.
Last year, the sheriffs’ offices in Horry and York counties were featured consistently in monthly reports released by ICE on the usage of 287g agreements. According to the reports, the highlighted cases “are a sampling” of people identified by state or local law enforcement. Both Horry and York counties have had jail enforcement agreements with ICE since June 2020.
The reported cases included people in their jails on charges including murder, criminal sexual conduct with children, driving under the influence, and domestic violence.
No other law enforcement agencies in South Carolina were mentioned in the reports.
An administrative office for ICE attorneys is set to open in downtown Columbia under a 10-year, $4.3 million contract with the owners of a high-rise on Main Street. Columbia city officials told The Post and Courier they didn’t know about the leasing contract.
Columbia officials also said they didn’t know about a so-called holding room ICE has used inside the Strom Thurmond federal building a half-mile away on Assembly Street, which is attached to a federal courthouse vacated in 2003. Hold rooms are spaces where people are temporarily held before being transferred, according to ICE.
ICE has used the space in downtown Columbia as a hold room since 2014, but it’s gotten the most use during Trump’s administrations. Last year, more than 400 people were brought there, compared to 171 in 2024, The Post and Courier reported.
Other ICE holding rooms in South Carolina are located in Charleston and Greer, according to the New York-based Vera Institute of Justice, which is tracking ICE detention facilities.
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
