ICE Raids in Oklahoma Leave Communities in Shock Amid 287(g) Partnerships

Vehicles speed past as local law enforcement and ICE agents swiftly detain individuals on Oklahoma roads. Within minutes, the arrested person is gone—torn from their life and transported into an uncertain future. The agents, often in unmarked vehicles, vanish just as quickly, leaving behind abandoned cars filled with personal belongings.

A white Ford Transit work van sits abandoned in Oklahoma City’s northern suburbs. Tools remain in the back, a work order lies on the passenger seat, and take-out food sits on the dashboard. Nearby, a maroon Ford Fusion is stranded in the grass off Interstate 44. Inside, construction gloves, a camouflage jacket, a yellow safety vest, a cooler, and a thermos with an Arkansas Razorbacks logo are left behind. ICE arrested the driver of this truck on February 20, 2026.

Oklahoma’s 287(g) Agreements Fuel ICE Raids

Oklahoma, where all 77 counties supported Trump and his anti-immigrant policies in 2024, has become a key ally in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. Over 30 state and local law enforcement agencies now hold 287(g) agreements with ICE, effectively deputizing them to conduct immigration arrests. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol, with over 700 state troopers, is among those empowered to make such arrests.

Recent data reveals that ICE arrested more than 1,300 people in Oklahoma during the first two and a half months of 2026 alone.

“Just because we don’t see the things that we’re seeing out of Minneapolis, doesn’t mean people aren’t being detained. It doesn’t mean that people aren’t being taken and disappeared…because that is happening in Oklahoma.”

— Oklahoma City-based immigration lawyer

Private Prisons Profit from Immigrant Detention

Years of criminal justice reform have left Oklahoma’s counties and towns, as well as the private prison industry, seeking new revenue streams. Incarcerating immigrants for ICE has become a lucrative opportunity. Several jails now detain immigrants for ICE, including facilities in Kay, Logan, Grady, Blaine, and Tulsa counties.

The Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, operated by CoreCivic, currently detains 600 immigrants per day. In late 2025, CoreCivic, DHS/ICE, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections finalized a deal to repurpose and reopen the Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga as an ICE detention center.

A prison bus regularly passes through residential neighborhoods in Cushing, transporting detained individuals from the Cimarron Correctional Facility to other centers. A local resident noted, “Big buses and vans, they come by here all the time, day and night.”