The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Is Detaining People for ICE
The Department of Louisiana Of Wildlife And Fisheries (LDWF), typically responsible in part for monitoring wildlife preserves and enforcing local hunting rules, helped U.S. immigration authorities place at least six people in federal custody this year, according to WIRED documents obtained through a public records request.
According to the documents, LDWF signed a memorandum of understanding with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in May, which gives the wildlife agency the authority to detain people suspected of immigration violations and transfer them to ICE custody. Since then, at least six men have been taken into ICE custody after coming into contact with or being detained by LDWF agents. None of the men faced criminal charges at the time they came into contact with LDWF agents, according to the documents. ICE knew that two of the men were in the country legally at the time the agency took them into custody.
The documents also indicate that at least one “joint patrol” took place in a Louisiana wildlife management area, in which LDWF agents were accompanied by agents from Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard. The memorandum of understanding between ICE and LDWF makes no mention of CBP or the possibility of working with the agency under the agreement. However, the documents indicate that a relationship with CBP could have been facilitated through LDWF’s partnership with ICE.
LDWF has partnered with ICE through the agency’s 287(g) program, named for the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows agents and employees at the state or local level to perform some of the duties of U.S. immigration agents, such as investigating, apprehending, detaining, or transporting persons suspected of violating immigration law.
As of December 3, exactly 1,205 agencies partnered with ICE under the 287(g) program. (Eight additional agencies are currently awaiting approval from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.) Some 1,053 of these agreements have been signed this year, meaning registrations are up 693 percent from the end of 2024. LDWF is one of three state wildlife agencies — the others being the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources — to have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, according to ICE public records. All three agreements were signed this year.
The marked expansion of the 287(g) program this year has received relatively little attention. However, LDWF documents indicate that the state and local agencies involved actively detain people not guilty of any crime and facilitate their arrest and possible deportation.
CBP did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment. LDWF responded to questions about a particular incident, but did not respond to WIRED’s full request for comment. ICE spokeswoman Angelina Vicknair said the agency did not have enough information to determine whether the men were in custody, released or deported. She also said the number of men WIRED asked about, seven, was “too broad a query,” adding, “We’ll need you to narrow it down.” »
According to an LDWF “After Action Report” obtained by WIRED, three men were taken into federal custody after the agency conducted a joint patrol Aug. 11 with five U.S. Coast Guard officers and an unspecified number of CBP agents in Lake Borgne, which is within Louisiana’s sprawling Biloxi Swamp complex. According to the report, agents were looking for people who allegedly violated state oyster harvest statutes.
