By Michael Smith, Alicia A. Caldwell, Myles Miller, Bloomberg News

The federal government is supercharging its use of local cops to hunt down immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally as part of an unprecedented effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to deport millions of people.

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Some 10,500 local police, county sheriffs, state troopers, university law enforcement and even lottery investigators have been signed up to stop, arrest and detain undocumented immigrants. Nationwide data reviewed by Bloomberg show these officers, across 40 states, nabbed almost 3,000 people since Trump took office through the end of July. Florida keeps its own tally under the same program, and its deputized cops have arrested another 2,500 people since then.

Combined, that’s a small fraction of the total number of immigration arrests this year, but almost double the amount that deputized cops made in 2024 under President Joe Biden’s watch.

Local law enforcement usually doesn’t have the authority to enforce immigration rules, but a nearly 30-year-old program called 287(g) allows the federal government to grant immigration arrest power to agencies that sign on. Trump has overseen a dramatic expansion at the start of his second term, with the number of accords surging seven-fold to almost 1,100 by September.

It’s “a force multiplier,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said in an interview.

But among the local law-enforcement agencies, some have been much more enthusiastic participants than others. About three-fourths of the 330 participating police forces in Florida, by far the largest ICE partner after Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through a law requiring them to sign up, have made zero arrests months into their partnerships, the state’s data show. Officials frequently say that it isn’t a priority for officers focused on fighting violent crime, thwarting robberies and improving community relations.

In greater Miami, which has one of the largest concentrations of Latino immigrants in America, police and sheriff’s departments have made about two dozen immigration arrests since August.

“We have other priorities in this community that I’m focused on, and immigration is not one of them,” Gregory Tony, the Democratic sheriff of Broward County, north of Miami, said at a county budget committee meeting in June. “It’s not within our purview, it’s not within our responsibility, and I won’t participate in it.”

Tony’s comments led Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to threaten to remove the sheriff from office, citing the state law that requires police to use “best efforts to support” federal immigration agents. As of Oct. 27, Tony’s deputies had made zero immigration arrests. Uthmeier declined to comment.

Over the decades, just a handful of local law-enforcement agencies cut 287(g) deals with ICE, according to the American Immigration Council. But Trump has hugely expanded these agreements to supplement roughly 65,000 ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents with additional forces.

St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick, who polices a 40-mile stretch of I-95 around St. Augustine, Florida, says his officers now routinely question people’s immigration status when they get pulled over someone for speeding or other infraction. He already has 66 of his sheriff’s officers trained and deputized by ICE, and is adding another 45.

This year his deputies have arrested about 700 people on immigration charges, mainly during vehicle stops, expanding a years-long practice of running a check for federal immigration violations when they suspected someone may be undocumented, he said.

“So to take this enforcement on as a sheriff when our new president took office was easy because we were kind of already doing it, holding people accountable,” Hardwick said in an interview. But now, he says, there’s much more support from the federal government.

It’s part of the president’s growing toolkit for his immigration crackdown. Even amid court challenges, Trump has deployed thousands of active duty military troops, along with combat vehicles and more than 100 Coast Guard boats, to the border, where crossings have plummeted. He’s also sought to deploy National Guard troops in major cities — including Los Angeles — though many of those efforts have been legally blocked or scaled back.

In the interior of the country, ICE recorded more than 196,000 arrests between Jan. 20 and Sept. 20, according to data posted by the agency. During that same time, ICE has deported about 180,000 people.

Police chiefs and sheriffs who have criticized the 287(g) agreements often point to the complexities of immigration law, limited training for their officers and the legal liabilities they could create.

Allegations of racial profiling have dogged previous iterations of the program. A Justice Department report in 2011 concluded sheriff’s officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, had engaged in profiling to target and arrest Latino residents.

Florida’s push for immigration arrests may have led to mistakes, according to court records and interviews with immigration lawyers.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 21-year-old U.S. citizen, was headed from his home in Georgia to a carpet installation job in Tallahassee with two co-workers on April 16. Soon after crossing into Florida, a state trooper pulled over their vehicle for speeding and questioned their immigration status.

“I told him I was born here, showed them my license, my Social Security card, but he didn’t believe me,” Lopez-Gomez said in an interview in Spanish. The trooper handcuffed and arrested Lopez-Gomez for allegedly violating a Florida law against entering the state as an illegal alien, records show. It was the same law a federal judge had blocked as unconstitutional two weeks before.

A county judge threw out the case after Lopez-Gomez’s mother showed up with his birth certificate, but said only ICE could get him out of jail, Lopez-Gomez said. He spent 38 hours locked up before an ICE agent reviewed his documents and let him go. He says he is considering filing a lawsuit for unlawful arrest.

“I still don’t understand why they did that to me,” Lopez-Gomez said from his home in Cairo, Georgia. “Every day I leave the house scared they will try to deport me again – the anxiety gets the best of me.”

The Florida Highway Patrol declined to comment.

DeSantis has aggressively gone after towns and sheriffs perceived as resisting working with ICE.

Fort Myers, a town on the Gulf Coast, backed down from refusing to sign a deal with ICE after Uthmeier threatened to remove city commissioners from office for violating state law.

A few miles west of downtown Miami in Doral, a heavily Latino city where Trump owns a golf course, Police Chief Edwin Lopez has no plans to order his officers to hunt for undocumented immigrants even though the department plans to sign a 287(g) agreement.

“I do a lot of educating the community and let them know that the police department is here to protect and serve,” Lopez, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in an interview. “We’re not necessarily arbitrarily requesting or asking questions in terms of immigration status.”

Among the state agencies that has made immigration arrests is the Florida Lottery’s security division. The force of roughly a dozen officers is charged with securing lottery drawings, investigating fake tickets and running background checks on retailers. But on April 24, it signed a 287(g) agreement, and it has since made 10 immigration arrests. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment.

One major incentive for law-enforcement agencies to sign the 287(g) agreements is the promise of a cash infusion. ICE is now offering to fully reimburse salary and benefits and part of the overtime for each trained 287(g) officer, and to pay quarterly bonuses of as much as $1,000 if certain arrest targets are met.

The money hasn’t always worked.

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux turned down a request from ICE to join the 287(g) program that came with a promise of $25 million in reimbursements for salaries and operational costs.

“Our officers are focused on serving our city by answering 911 calls and aggressively fighting violent crime,” Comeaux said in a statement. “Federal authorities have a different mission with the same importance.”

In Loudoun County, Virginia, one of the nation’s wealthiest suburbs, Sheriff Mike Chapman has an agreement to hold inmates flagged by ICE until federal officers can take custody.

But he isn’t going to order his deputies to become immigration agents. He wants them to focus on local safety and community engagement.

“People may not like what we’re doing, but they trust us,” he said in an interview. “They realize it’s important to keep them safe, and that’s what we’re about.”

Some cops just don’t know what to do with their partnership with ICE, like Sheriff K. Zane Hopkins in Nebraska’s Banner County. His desolate 745-square-mile rectangle in the southwest part of the state has fewer than 700 residents, making it home to “more cows than people.”

Hopkins, a Republican elected in 2023, signed a 287(g) agreement in part because Banner somehow ended up on the Department of Homeland Security’s list of so-called “sanctuary” counties, which restrict local police from assisting federal immigration agents. Signing up with ICE was an effort to help clear up any misconceptions. But a traffic stop that involves an immigration issue, he said, can keep him or his sole deputy occupied for an hour or more.

Hopkins recalls two traffic stops since 2023 that involved a driver suspected of being in violation of federal immigration laws, and both times ICE agents opted not to respond. The county is a nearly seven-hour drive from Nebraska’s lone ICE office in Omaha.

“We are not actively going out and looking for people.” Hopkins said of immigration enforcement. “If we do it, we do it as part of our daily duties. I’m not super worried about trying to enforce it and I’m not going to chase reimbursement.”

—With assistance from Fabiola Zerpa and Phil Kuntz.

©2025 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By STEVE PEOPLES, AP National Political Writer

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Democrat Abigail Spanberger is more eager to talk about struggling soybean farmers than President Donald Trump’s attack on American institutions. She plays down the historic nature of her campaign for Virginia governor and avoids making big, bold promises about what she will accomplish if elected.

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Yet some believe the moderate approach — others call it boring — that the former congresswoman and CIA case officer has taken heading into Tuesday’s election holds the key to the Democratic Party’s national revival.

“Don’t promise things you know you can’t deliver,” Spanberger said aboard her bus campaigning this week to be the state’s first female governor. It was a sober warning to Democratic leaders across the country — New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and former President Joe Biden among them.

It may be an underwhelming message for the millions of angry voters who have flocked to anti-Donald Trump protests in recent weeks demanding that Democratic leaders take bold action to fight the Republican’s norm-busting presidency. But as the Democratic Party searches for an effective message and messengers in the wake of last fall’s Election Day drubbing, Spanberger is offering a pragmatic focus on economic concerns and a toned-down pledge to address Trump’s most damaging policies, when possible.

That tack is in line with a growing group of Democratic governors, top party operatives and Mikie Sherrill, the New Jersey congresswoman and former Navy helicopter pilot who is the only other Democratic gubernatorial hopeful on the ballot next week. They are betting big that a centrist message aimed at voters’ economic concerns will deliver victory where an intense focus on stopping Trump from unraveling American democracy failed in 2024.

The Republican nominees in Virginia and New Jersey, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Trump-endorsed former business owner and state legislator Jack Ciattarelli, have tried to paint their Democratic opponents as out-of-touch liberals more concerned about transgender rights and immigrants who are in the United States illegally than they are about the safety of school children.

That playbook worked for Trump in the last presidential election. But given the national security backgrounds of Spanberger and Sherrill, it is unclear whether that will work Tuesday.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has campaigned alongside Spanberger and Sherrill over the past week, noted that both candidates have focused on rising costs while offering a clear contrast to the chaos that has consumed Trump’s Washington. It’s largely the same approach that Shapiro has taken as he gears up for a 2026 reelection campaign in the swing state before a possible 2028 presidential bid.

“The lesson is winning,” Shapiro said when asked about whether the approach reflects lessons learned from Democrats’ struggles in 2024.

Democratic divisions loom

The Democratic Party is far from united on how to move forward.

Just as Spanberger and Sherrill embrace moderation, progressive leaders such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have lined up behind Mamdani, who is also on the ballot Tuesday. The self-described democratic socialist has called for government-run grocery stores, free public transit and rent freezes, among other policies that may be difficult to enact if he wins.

Mamdani is in an increasingly caustic race with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani.

“The socialists want to take over the Democratic Party,” Cuomo said in a weekend radio interview. “He wins, book airline tickets for Florida now.”

But some Democratic voters, even some who came out to hear Spanberger’s message in Virginia this week, say they are excited about Mamdani.

Mikal Blount, a 31-year-old commercial window cleaner, joined dozens of voters at a Norfolk restaurant on Sunday to see Spanberger. He said he is impressed by her bipartisan approach and experience in law enforcement, but he also hopes Mamdani wins and emerges as a national star.

“It’s OK to have moderates create common ground and progressives who are down to fight,” he said, expressing frustration with his party’s leaders in Washington. “I’m like what are we doing? We’re not hitting back. MAGA Republicans aren’t holding back, so why are we?” — referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

Spanberger was less enthusiastic about Mamdani’s emergence.

In an interview, Spanberger said she fears his approach could push people away from the party, but not necessarily because of his most controversial policies, even those she disagrees with. She sees it as a matter of telling the truth.

“We should always, always, always, dream big. It’s not a focus on, just do little things,” she said. “But if he’s making promises that he can’t keep to people who are struggling to put food on the table for their kids or to pay their bus fare to get to their second job of the day, then what’s the long term impact on the people who put their faith in somebody?”

Spanberger offered a similar criticism of Biden’s campaign promises to cancel student debt.

“We wonder why people are like, ‘Oh, I’m tired of voting for the Democrats.’” she said. “If you were to talk to people about canceling debt, a number of people will express some level of, ‘He didn’t do what he said he was going to do.’ Well, he was never going to be able to do that, right?”

A move to the middle

A collection of Democratic operatives released a report this week, “Deciding to Win: Toward a Common Sense Renewal of the Democratic Party,” that effectively endorses Spanberger’s approach.

The report features input from top advisers to Biden, former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris. It calls on Democratic candidates to reject progressive purity tests and talk less about democracy, climate change and far-left cultural priorities and more about health care, the cost of living and public safety.

Veteran Democratic operative Jesse Ferguson, who provided input, said Spanberger is doing well because she’s “able to connect the pain from Washington to the pockets in Virginia.”

“Trump’s authoritarianism will fail — not because we convince people it’s authoritarian, but because we show them it’s expensive,” Ferguson said.

Spanberger has not attended any of the “No Kings” protests that have featured millions of anti-Trump voters concerned with the threat he poses to U.S. democracy. She rarely said his name on a statewide bus tour this week that took her from Virginia’s affluent suburbs in the north to its military base communities on the Eastern Shore and the Appalachian hills in the rural southwest.

“I feel like if I say it too much, it’s like Beetlejuice. He’s gonna show up,” Spanberger joked.

This election, she said, is more about the struggles of everyday voters than Trump’s attack on democracy.

“When we win, it’s repudiation of the policies that are harming Virginia, whether it’s the shutdown, DOGE, or tariffs,” Spanberger said. “Like one guy like is single-handedly crushing Virginia soybean farmers, like one guy is single-handedly raising input costs for fertilizer and for farm equipment.”

Another topic Spanberger does not mention much: the possibility of becoming the first woman elected governor in Virginia.

“I’m delighted that we will have a woman governor. I’m delighted by the fact that when the next generation of candidates step forward, it’s not, ‘Oh, do you think a woman can win?’” she said. “It’s very significant to other people. But I don’t want to ever make the race about me.”

With a victory in Game 6 in Toronto on Friday night, the Blue Jays can wrap up a third World Series title. The first two were back-to-back wins in 1992 and 1993, and neither would have happened without an injection of St. Paul DNA.

North St. Paul’s Louie Varland is a key part of this year’s Jays bullpen, but those first Toronto winners featured Hall of Famers Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor and Jack Morris, all of whom grew up within a few miles of one another west of downtown.

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Jack Morris pitches against the Atlanta Braves in the first inning of the World Series, Oct. 17, 1992 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Swart)

All of them played for the home town Twins, as well, but only Morris won a World Series with Minnesota. Winfield and Molitor each reached another Series — with the Yankees and Brewers, respectively — but their championship rings are from Toronto.

Winfield hit .280 with 62 extra-base hits — 26 of them home runs and, perhaps most impressive, three triples at age 40. He drove in 108 runs for a Blue Jays team that won 96 regular-season games and beat Atlanta, 4-2 in the 1992 World Series.

“That was my favorite year,” he said.

For Winfield, 74, it remains the high point of a remarkable athletic career that started at Central High School, included standout baseball and basketball careers at the University of Minnesota and ended with 3,110 major league hits, 465 of them home runs.

“I had a lot of hits, played for a lot of teams — a lot of things like that,” Winfield said from his home in Southern California last week. “But to win as a team, that’s what baseball is all about. That goes down in history.”

Morris, the ride-or-die right-hander from Highland Park, won a league-high 21 games and became the Blue Jays’ first 20-game winner in 1992 — no mean feat, he added, considering some of the pitchers Toronto had put on the mound: Dave Steib, Mike Flannagan and Jim Clancy among them.

Morris, 70, pitched for World Series winners in Detroit (1984), Minnesota (1991) and Toronto (1992). Asked if he were rooting for the Blue Jays this week, he said, “Oh, you bet I am.”

“Each was a unique joy for me,” he said. “Detroit because it was the first, and because of all the guys who had worked together to get to that point. Coming home was, I think, the dream of every young kid. And then the two teams I played for in Toronto were the most talented teams. I mean, they were all-star teams.”

Morris pitched a team-high 240⅔ innings for that 1992 team that also included star position players Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter and John Olerud — with Winfield as the designated hitter.

“It was a fun time and a fun team, everybody got along,” Winfield said. “We drew over 4 million fans, something the Dodgers did this year; we did it 30-plus years ago. It’s really something to win for an entire country that had never won before. That makes a permanent imprint.”

Morris suffered an elbow injury late in 1993 and couldn’t pitch in the postseason, but an influx of all-star talent the previous winter had already made that team the most talented he ever played on. That included former Cy Young winner Dave Stewart and Rickey Henderson, still baseball’s best leadoff hitter.

But no addition was bigger than Molitor, who replaced Winfield as DH and hit .332 with a .402 on-base percentage, league-high 211 hits and 121 runs scored.

“That team was even better, and it was hard for me because I couldn’t play,” Morris said. “But I really did appreciate what those guys did, and I had the best seat in the house, got to hear all the conversations after guys got off the mound and or out of the batter’s box.”

Morris will have good seats for Game 6 on Friday, as well. He was getting ready to travel to Toronto to be at the Rogers Centre — known as SkyDome during those first World Series runs — to watch the game in person.

Winfield will continue watching from So Cal, where he has a rooting interest in each team. But he only played for one and looked back fondly on his one year in Toronto, where he remains a beloved figure.

Toronto Blue Jays third base coach Nick Leyva, left, puts his arm around Paul Molitor after Molitor was advanced to third in the seventh inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Oct. 19, 1993 in Philadelphia. Molitor scored in the seventh as the Blue Jays defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 10-3 to take a 2-1 lead. (AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy)

He gets back to Canada once or twice a year, he said, “And they always recognize me and are very generous, happy to meet me. It’s always a pleasure.”

Morris doesn’t expect he’ll be recognized as much on Friday.

“If they have brown or black hair, they won’t see me,” he said. “You have to be at least 60 now to recognize me.”

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By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Hip-hop producer Sean “Diddy” Combs wants a federal appeals court to quickly consider the legality of his conviction on prostitution-related charges and his more than four-year prison sentence.

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His lawyers filed papers with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, asking that oral arguments in his appeal occur in April.

The lawyers noted that Combs has already served 14 months of his 50-month sentence and that he may earn reductions in time behind bars because of his participation in a substance abuse treatment program and a program established by the First Step Act to improve an inmate’s return to society.

Combs wants his appeal to be considered soon enough that he can benefit from a reduction of time spent in prison if the appeals court reverses his conviction, his lawyers said.

Combs, 55, was convicted in July of flying his girlfriends and male sex workers around the country to engage in drug-fueled sexual encounters in multiple places over many years. However, he was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life.

Apologetic at his sentencing for what he described as his “disgusting, shameful” behavior, the Bad Boy Records founder was sentenced to four years and two months in prison by a judge who praised the courage of the women who testified against him.

Combs is scheduled to be released from prison on May 8, 2028, assuming he gets credit for good behavior behind bars. He has been incarcerated since his arrest in September 2024, when he was taken into custody at a Manhattan hotel.

In a letter to the judge before he was sentenced, Combs said he has gone through a “spiritual reset” in jail and was “committed to the journey of remaining a drug free, non-violent and peaceful person.”

His lawyers told the judge that Combs’ arrest and conviction have destroyed his businesses, forcing the layoffs of more than 100 employees who struggled to find new jobs because of their past association with the music mogul.

He also still faces dozens of lawsuits filed against him since his arrest.