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Louisiana Department The Wildlife and Fisheries Association (LDWF), partly responsible for overseeing wildlife preserves and enforcing local hunting rules, helped U.S. immigration authorities bring at least six people into federal custody this year, according to documents obtained from WIRED via a public records request.
According to the documents, LDWF signed a memorandum of agreement 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 entered ICE custody after contacting or being detained by LDWF officers. None of the men had been criminally charged at the time they contacted LDWF officers, documents show. ICE knew that two of the men were in the country legally at the time the agency detained them.
The documents also indicate that at least one “joint patrol” took place in a Louisiana Wildlife Management Area where LDWF agents were accompanied by officers from Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard. The memorandum of agreement between ICE and LDWF does not include any reference to CBP or the possibility of working with the agency as part of the agreement. However, the documents indicate that the relationship with CBP may have been facilitated through LDWF’s partnership with ICE.
LDWF has partnered with ICE under the agency’s 287(g) program, named after the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that enables state or local officers and employees to perform certain functions of U.S. immigration officers, such as investigating, apprehending, detaining, or transporting persons suspected of violating immigration law.
As of December 3exactly 1,205 agencies have partnered with ICE through the 287(g) program. (Eight additional agencies are currently awaiting approval from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.) About 1,053 of those agreements were signed this year, meaning a 693 percent increase in enrollment compared to 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 — that have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, according to ICE public records. The three agreements were signed this year.
The notable expansion of the 287(g) program this year has generated relatively little interest. However, documents released by LDWF indicate that registered state and local agencies detain people not guilty of any crimes, facilitating their arrest and possible deportation.
CBP did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment. LDWF answered questions about a specific incident, but did not respond to WIRED’s full request for comment. ICE spokeswoman Angelina Vicknair — when given the men’s full names, the dates and locations of their detention, all known circumstances of their detention, and all other identifying information included in the documents — said the agency did not have enough information to determine whether the men were detained, released or deported. She also said that the number of men WIRED asked, seven, constituted a “pretty large query,” adding, “We’re going to need you to narrow it down.”
Per LDWF In an “after-action report” obtained by WIRED, three men were taken into federal custody after the agency conducted a joint patrol on Aug. 11 with five U.S. Coast Guard officers and an unknown number of Customs and Border Protection agents at Lake Bourne, located in the sprawling Biloxi Marsh Complex in Louisiana. According to the report, officers were looking for people who were allegedly violating state laws on harvesting oyster seeds.