Make our newscast part of your daily listening routine. Subscribe on Spotify (or wherever you listen to podcasts).
Wyoming has joined 19 other GOP-led states in ramping up its role in the federal crackdown on immigration enforcement, recently confirming it could tap the Wyoming National Guard.
The move builds on Gov. Mark Gordon’s announcement last week that he’d signed a contract for the Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) to work on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Not all Wyoming Highway Patrol officers will have the authority to make arrests for ICE, as the state is starting with a limited scope and only plans to train a few officers at a time.
Col. Tim Cameron oversees Wyoming Highway Patrol and supports state involvement.
“I think it benefits our state. I think it benefits our country,” Cameron said, adding that it cements Wyoming’s commitment to “secure our border.”
Cameron anticipates that the five Wyoming counties with similar partnerships will eventually train at least two officers each to perform ICE arrests. Only those who receive training can make arrests on behalf of ICE.
The highway patrol website states it has 208 officers.
Five Wyoming counties have already signed onto different levels of participation with ICE for local law enforcement, known as 287(g) agreements. Most are new under the second Trump administration.
In an interview Gordon said the move is necessary to tackle illegal drug trade in the state and won’t detract from duties.
“We find more and more of our stops have had some component of illegal drug trade,” Gordon said. “We’re not taking people off their duty assignments and putting them in new assignments.”
An analysis from WyoFile and the Colorado Sun found that most people arrested by ICE this year did not have a criminal history.
Rep. Mike Yin, a Jackson Democrat, believes immigration should be left to the federal government.
“It’s not the state government’s job to do immigration enforcement,” Yin said in a text. “If the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] asked the state to help them with enforcement, would the governor agree to help them too?”
“I don’t think he would.”
The move formalizes existing partnerships, Gordon said.
Wyoming Highway Patrol has sought training from peer troops in Texas and, in 2023 and 2024, sent troopers to help secure the border with Mexico following a request from Texas Gov. Greg Abbot. After the 2024 deployment, Texas Rangers came to Wyoming to provide training.
“For lack of a better phrase, [the partnership is] in some ways more of a housekeeping measure,” he said.
A spokesperson for the governor said a timeline for training and deployment of National Guard troops is not yet available.
“We are still waiting to receive clarification on a few details of the Guard’s participation, which will be limited in scope and solely in a supporting role,” Michael Pearlman wrote in an email.
Deploying the National Guard for immigration enforcement is not new. The federal government has sent troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to assist Customs and Border Patrol. Doing so outside the borderlands is less typical, and spurred controversy when President Donald Trump deployed troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer to quiet protests over immigration raids.
