ICE will soon deport a Chinese man who called 911 from an icy Oklahoma roadside during January’s snowstorm, despite his fully legal status, his attorney said.
Yingchao Fan held a valid work permit, a pending asylum case, and a California Real ID when his car wrecked on Interstate 40. Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers arrived, questioned him about his nationality, and arrested him. He was not charged with a crime. He did not receive a traffic citation.
After weeks shuttled between three detention facilities, Fan has decided to stop fighting.
“He, like many people, is just giving up,” said attorney Ted Hasse. “What seems to be the goal of the administration is to push people into this position where they’re just going to give up.”
Fan’s case illustrates how Oklahoma has built one of the most aggressive immigration enforcement infrastructures in the country, one that generates significant federal money for the state’s law enforcement agencies, detention facilities, and local economies, regardless of whether those arrested are in the country legally.
Troubled Model
The troopers who arrested Fan were operating under the Task Force Model, a broad and aggressive form of agreement between local law enforcement and ICE. Under the model, certified officers have the power to make warrantless immigration arrests, interrogate individuals about their status, prepare charging documents, issue detainers, and transport people to ICE facilities, all during the course of routine police work.
“OHP will assign troopers to serve as ICE task force officers to provide statewide enforcement,
addressing criminal activity by illegal aliens,” Oklahoma Public Safety Commissioner Tipton wrote. “We will also support ICE by collaborating with other state, county, and municipal authorities for enforcement assistance.”
Department of Public Safety Director of Media Operations Sarah Stewart confirmed that approximately 730 OHP troopers are now certified under the Task Force Model, most of the force.
“All troopers that are eligible to be 287(g) certified are,” Stewart said in an email. “The ones who have less than two years on are not eligible.”
The Task Force Model has a troubled history. The Obama administration discontinued it in 2012 after the Department of Homeland Security’s own Office of Inspector General found in 2010 that civil rights training for 287(g) participants was inadequate. The DOJ also found it was used in racial profiling in participating jurisdictions, most prominently in Maricopa County, Arizona, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s use of the Task Force Model led to more than $300 million in legal and compliance costs, including lawsuits.
The model was not revived even during Trump’s first term, but on his first day in office in January 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14159, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which explicitly directed ICE to maximize 287(g) agreements and reinstated the Task Force Model.
Oklahoma is among the model’s most enthusiastic adopters. In addition to the OHP, the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, and at least 35 other state law enforcement agencies now have active 287(g) agreements with ICE.
But as was the case with Fan, few of those being arrested under ICE agreements have criminal records and are often here legally. And not everyone in law enforcement is buying into the move.
Revenue or Bust
The Task Force Model may not be just an enforcement tool for Oklahoma. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, it could be a revenue stream, but details remain unclear.
On September 2, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced that a new reimbursement program, funded by the act, would pay participating agencies for every certified 287(g) officer. The program covers the full annual salary and benefits of each trained officer, including overtime up to 25% of their annual salary. On top of that, agencies are eligible for quarterly performance bonuses based on the “successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE” — the percentage of ICE-identified individuals that officers successfully find. Agencies that locate 90% to 100% earn $1,000 per officer per quarter; 80% to 89% earn $750; and 70% to 79% earn $500, according to a DHS press release.
But for most Oklahoma agencies that have signed 287(g) agreements, the money has not arrived and the enforcement has barely begun.
The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, which signed a Task Force Model agreement, has six agents trained but only one actively participating — and only because he was already assigned to an OHP tactical team, according to a spokesman. Col. Bobby Higdon said OBN has made two immigration arrests in the past year, is not conducting standalone immigration enforcement, and has received no federal reimbursement.
“OBN is in the process of completing the MOA regarding their payroll reimbursement program,” Higdon said. “(The) Agreement is not yet in place. However, OBN does not anticipate any changes to the agency’s budget, relative to 287(g) work.”
OBN Deputy Director Brian Surber confirmed the picture from the field level.
“We haven’t even — we’ve got the agreements, haven’t gotten anything back,” Surber said. “Nothing’s really happened on it yet.”
The bonus structure does not distinguish between locating someone with a serious criminal record and someone like Fan, who had a valid work permit and a pending asylum case.
Nevertheless, many agencies report no such bonuses so far.
“They pay us, you know, for our time, wherever the hours are. It ain’t like a bounty,” Sterling Police Chief Brad Alexander said.
Texas County Sheriff Matt Boley said he signed a warrant service officer agreement and got his commissioners to approve a Task Force Model agreement, but has not signed the latter and has not sent any officers to training. His department has made no arrests under 287(g) and has received no money.
“We’re not part of the task force yet, so we don’t have anything,” Boley said. “We’re just doing what’s expected of all the sheriffs in the nation, and that is to honor the ICE detainers that are lodged.”
No law enforcement agency in Oklahoma interviewed for this story confirmed receiving reimbursement payments.
The DPS Task Force Model Memorandum of Agreement, signed by Tipton on Valentine’s Day 2025, states that participating officers will carry out their duties “at the LEA’s (Law Enforcement Agency) expense, including salaries and benefits, local transportation, and official issue material.” It adds: “Whether or not the LEA receives financial reimbursement for such costs through a federal grant or other funding mechanism is not material to this MOA.”
Some have questioned the legality of the reimbursement process. Keith Armstrong, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union challenging 287(g) agreements for deputies in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, suggested the payments might be illegal.
“It raises a lot of questions about who is in control of the deputies and how much time they dedicate, and that really takes resources away from the local duties taxpayers are paying them for,” Armstrong told the Bucks County Beacon.
According to ICE’s proposed pay schedule and OHP salary data, Oklahoma could recoup an estimated $66 million to $79 million for all 730 OHP troopers deputized under the state’s 287(g) agreement, even as they are paid for executing state laws.
Behind Bars
With CoreCivic’s projected $100 million in annual revenue from Diamondback and the Department of Corrections’ $10 million annual pass-through, the total federal investment in Oklahoma’s immigration enforcement infrastructure could exceed $175 million per year once fully operational. Much of that is projected rather than confirmed: CoreCivic’s facility holds 64 detainees in a 2,160-bed facility, and the DOC has received only one monthly payment so far. The law enforcement reimbursements have not been verified by any participating agency. But the financial architecture is in place, and the money is authorized.
Nationally, 287(g) agreements have grown from 135 to 958 — a 610% increase — with 8,501 officers trained and more than 2,000 in training as of September 2025, according to DHS.
The federal investment extends beyond reimbursing local law enforcement. The Oklahoman reported on February 25 that ICE signed a $3.8 million, five-year lease at Corporate Tower in downtown Oklahoma City for a 70-person attorney office, part of a nationwide expansion of ICE’s prosecutorial capacity. The newspaper reported that ICE held a recruitment event for local immigration attorneys at a September meeting at the Vast restaurant atop the Devon Energy Center, offering signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and student loan repayment of up to $60,000.
Joe Prentice, an investigator with the Okmulgee County District Attorney’s Office, said three investigators in his office are trained under 287(g) and have made four detentions, three on traffic stops and one involving a person mistakenly released from jail. Prentice said the office signed its agreement to deal with illegal marijuana grows staffed by foreign nationals, not to conduct broad immigration enforcement.
“To my knowledge, we haven’t gotten any money and that’s not why we explored the agreement to begin with,” Prentice said. “I really don’t have any desire to go hunting down illegal immigrants.”
However, other revenue streams flow through Oklahoma’s detention infrastructure. Under a management agreement signed September 25, 2025, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections receives a monthly administrative fee of $833,333 from CoreCivic for overseeing the reopened Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, exclusively to house ICE detainees. That amounts to approximately $10 million per year for stationing one contract monitor at the facility.
The Diamondback agreement promises approximately 400 jobs for Watonga and the payment of local property taxes.
Kay Thompson, a DOC spokesperson, said the department has received one payment so far.
“We’re not operating it,” Thompson said. “That’s the big thing.”
For Fan, the system achieved what attorneys say is its purpose. Hasse said the rate of detained immigrants accepting voluntary departure offers was about 20% to 22% early in 2025 but “spiked through 2025 and then got very high in December, and it looks like it’s just gonna go up and up.”
“The strategy is to take all these folks who would’ve had an option to fight their case and be out of custody and force them into this impossible position,” Hasse said.
He noted that those who accept voluntary departure can, in theory, apply to return to the United States, while those who are formally deported face a permanent bar.
Fan’s journey through the system touched every layer of Oklahoma’s enforcement infrastructure. His arrest by OHP generated potential federal reimbursement for the officers involved. His detention at Sequoyah County, Tulsa County, and Cimarron generated potential revenue for each facility. At no point were the merits of his asylum case or the validity of his work authorization adjudicated. Hasse said the implications extend far beyond Fan.
“There are, right now, a lot of people in the state of Oklahoma who could be picked up now by ICE and then detained without any sort of bond hearing,” he said, “who will be surprised to find that out.”
He described people with work permits, valid state driver’s licenses, and pending asylum applications who believe they are living in the United States legally, who do not realize that the current administration’s interpretation of immigration law puts them at risk of arrest during any encounter with law enforcement.
The enforcement network may soon grow larger. Senate Bill 2013, filed by State Sen. Lisa Standridge, R-Norman, would require every law enforcement agency in Oklahoma to enter a 287(g) agreement with ICE by September and maintain at least 25% of their officers trained under the program. At current federal reimbursement rates, passage could push the annual federal subsidy to Oklahoma law enforcement past $100 million.
“Any traffic stop is going to be perilous,” Hasse said. “Any contact with police is going to be dangerous.”
Hasse said he is now advising people whose immigration status could be questioned to leave Oklahoma for states that have not deputized their highway patrol as ICE agents.
“This is not a safe place right now,” Hasse said. “I wouldn’t tell somebody, ‘I think you should leave Oklahoma,’ unless it’s really a perilous situation. It’s a serious situation right here.”
Tim Tipton, Commissioner of Public Safety, did not return calls for comment. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Requests to CoreCivic for comment went unanswered.
Republished in partnership with Oklahoma Watch under a Creative Commons license. Free Press publishes this report as a collaborative effort to provide the best coverage of state issues that affect our readers.
Ben Fenwick is a Norman-based journalist and contributor to Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at ben.fenwick@gmail.com.
