ICE is exploring a plan to reimburse local officers for liability insurance when they help enforce federal immigration law, but California agencies face a state-law barrier that blocks the very kind of deputized policing the proposal is meant to expand.

The proposal, first reported by the Associated Press, matters in San Francisco and across California because it lands against the state’s sanctuary framework: Government Code 7284.6 bars California law enforcement agencies from using personnel to make federal immigration enforcement part of local policing, including through 287(g) authority.

The plan, reported by the Associated Press (external source, opens in a new tab), would help pay for professional liability policies for state and local officers trained under ICE’s 287(g) program. AP reported that the contemplated policies would cover as much as $500,000 in personal exposure, with federal reimbursements of up to $250 per officer each year.

That turns an insurance detail into a local-government question. The 287(g) program is the formal channel through which local police and sheriff’s deputies can take on delegated federal immigration powers. The American Immigration Council’s overview (external source, opens in a new tab) describes those arrangements as memoranda between DHS and local agencies that assign selected officers immigration functions under federal supervision.

California law draws a hard line around that model. Government Code section 7284.6 (external source, opens in a new tab), part of the California Values Act, prohibits state and local police agencies from using their staff or budgets to carry out civil immigration enforcement. The same section also bars agencies from taking on immigration-officer functions under 8 U.S.C. 1357(g), the federal provision behind 287(g).

The insurance proposal appears aimed at a different obstacle in states and counties that are willing and legally able to sign onto the federal program: personal financial exposure. AP reported that some departments have worried ordinary municipal coverage may not apply to immigration-enforcement work. Butler County, Pennsylvania, Sheriff Michael Slupe told AP he found coverage for 13 deputies participating in the program at $20,000 in annual premiums. “I want to make sure the guys are additionally covered,” Slupe said.

The accountability concern runs in the opposite direction. AP reported that Cato Institute immigration analyst David Bier warned the reimbursement plan could further insulate officers from consequences if they violate rights while helping ICE. That concern carries particular weight in California because the state has already decided, through statute, that local officers should not be turned into federal immigration agents.

For San Francisco readers, the national headline has a California caveat. ICE may be trying to make 287(g) cheaper and less risky for officers, but in this state the first obstacle is not a premium. It is whether any local agency can participate at all without running into the Values Act.