Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin visited Lebanon on Friday, Sept. 4, to promote the federal 287(g) program that Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones has embraced.

Mullin joined ICE officials and the Warren County Sheriff's Office for a roughly 40-minute roundtable, WCPO reported. Warren, Butler and Clermont counties all participate in 287(g), which lets local law enforcement act as force multipliers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office and Cincinnati Police Department do not.

"It doesn't stay in that county. It bleeds into counties like Warren County," Mullin said of jurisdictions that decline to cooperate.

The program has a direct footprint in West Chester and Liberty townships. The Butler County Sheriff's Office, which provides law enforcement to Liberty Township under a four-year contract running through Dec. 31, 2028, holds all three types of ICE agreements: jail enforcement, task force and warrant service. Butler and Portage counties are the only two in Ohio with all three, according to an ACLU of Ohio report cited by the Columbus Dispatch in March.

The sheriff's office has housed immigration detainees since 2003, ended that contract in 2021, then signed a new one shortly after President Trump began his second term. The office now holds 300 to 400 ICE detainees on any given day and receives $105 per detainee per day, up from $68 when the current contract started, WVXU reported in February.

The money is substantial.

The sheriff's office brought in more than $14 million from the federal detention contract in 2025 and expects that figure to reach $20 million in 2026, according to WVXU. Jones has said the agreements have generated more than $200 million in federal payments over two decades, according to PBS NewsHour.

The 287(g) program has drawn scrutiny. Earlier in 2026, the police chief in Gratis, a village in Preble County, was fired after she and another officer visited Cincinnati schools seeking information under their department's 287(g) agreement. Officials at the Friday roundtable stressed that participating agencies are supposed to stay within their own jurisdictions.

Jones addressed that incident in an April interview with WLWT, saying Butler County deputies do not leave their jurisdiction. Chief Anthony Dwyer with the Butler County Sheriff's Office told the Cincinnati Enquirer in April that the Gratis officers were out of their jurisdiction and that Butler County deputies stay in Butler County.

The local connection surfaced in June, when two suspects arrested in a Liberty Township shooting were also held on ICE detainers after the sheriff's office determined they were in the country illegally, according to WCPO.

Butler County is also the only sheriff's office in Greater Cincinnati participating in ICE's Unaccompanied Alien Child Safety Verification Initiative, which sends deputies to check on the welfare of children who crossed the border without a parent, the Enquirer reported. Those checks go to the child's sponsor address, not to schools.

Southwest Ohio now has more law enforcement agencies signed up for 287(g) agreements than Arizona, California and New Mexico, according to WLWT. Nationally, the number of 287(g) agreements has increased more than 640 percent since January 2025, PBS NewsHour reported.

No on-record response from West Chester Township or Liberty Township officials about the program or Mullin's visit has been published.