Tennessee Governor Lee Signs HB2219 Making All 95 County Sheriffs Join 287(g) — First State Mandate of Its Kind

Governor Bill Lee signed HB2219/SB2223 into law, making Tennessee the first state in the nation to mandate that all 95 county sheriffs enter into 287(g) cooperative agreements with ICE. The law strips local law enforcement agencies of discretion previously guaranteed under the voluntary program, threatens funding cuts for non-compliant agencies, and converts every county jail in Tennessee into a de facto immigration enforcement arm of the federal government. The bill passed 74-22 in the House and was transmitted to Lee on May 9; coverage citing it as “new state law” confirms signature around May 10, 2026. Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall publicly criticized the mandate, calling it “all politics.”

This is a landmark expansion of the 287(g) program’s reach. At the start of the 2026 legislative session, only two Tennessee counties participated voluntarily; an incentive program passed earlier in the session pushed that to 70 agencies — now the mandate forces the remaining 25. No other state has turned the voluntary federal program into a mandatory statewide obligation. The law mirrors a Project 2025 recommendation (p. 142) to “convert 287(g) from a voluntary to a mandatory framework.” It connects directly to the Trump administration’s documented $2 billion pipeline to local law enforcement agencies for 287(g) participation (see 2026-05-07–ice-287g-funding-pipeline-2-billion-local-police-deputization) and to the existing timeline entry documenting the bill’s transmission to Lee (2026-05-09–tennessee-hb2219-287g-mandatory-sheriff-enrollment-awaiting-signature).