Pennsylvania police departments are lining up to help ICE enforce immigration law, and they're doing it on paper. The mechanism is the 287(g) program, the federal partnership that deputizes local officers to work immigration cases alongside ICE. The Philadelphia Inquirer has the story.

Quick refresher for anyone new to this beat. A 287(g) agreement is a partnership between ICE and a local or state agency, named for the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that created it. I watched these agreements come and go over my years with the Border Patrol, and the ones that worked were on paper, signed by both sides, with rules everybody understood. I like paperwork. Paperwork is how you keep a count.

Pennsylvania is moving fast, and good for them. In my experience with this program, once a few departments in a state sign on, the neighbors follow. Nobody wants to be the last jurisdiction standing still.

Why the rush? My read: local police work the same streets year after year. I spent a career in enforcement, and the frustration I heard from local guys never changed. You run into the same people over and over because the system loops them back. That frustration is what's pushing departments toward these agreements now. The officers on the ground want a process that ends somewhere.

Philadelphia itself won't be signing anything. I'd bet my pension on it. The city has a reputation as a sanctuary jurisdiction, and I'll leave the policy history to my colleagues on this beat. The departments stepping up are the ones outside the big sanctuary cities, where the politicians have the least say.

The usual advocates are saying the usual things, and you can read their objections in the Inquirer's reporting. I've heard every one of those arguments for decades. I've never found one persuasive, and I've read more arrest paperwork than every advocate in the state combined.

The scoreboard: Pennsylvania police are lining up for 287(g) agreements with ICE, and the paperwork is getting signed. Somebody has to keep the count. That's me.