I’ve been monitoring (and writing about) the massive growth in 287(g) partnership agreements between ICE and local and state law enforcement agencies since early last year. The agencies that have joined in the past year include 17 college and university campus police departments in Florida, at least 600 sheriffs' offices, several state highway patrols, the fish and wildlife conservation agencies in Louisiana and Florida, and one state’s lottery regulators and financial auditors (also Florida).But on last Monday’s list of active agreements published by ICE, I noticed a jarring addition: a K-12 school district police department.According to the Excel spreadsheet posted on ICE’s website Monday, the Caney Valley Public Schools Police Department in Washington County, Oklahoma submitted a Task Force Model 287(g) agreement, which was approved and counter-signed by someone at ICE the previous Friday, March 13th. Then, on Wednesday, the agreement was quietly removed from ICE’s updated list. Austin Kocher and I caught up on Wednesday’s updates on Substack Live here:Notably, this came after local journalists started to ask questions re: my post last Monday. On Thursday, Greg Sargent shared this update and response from the Caney Valley superintendent, Steven Cantrell:By Thursday evening, Ben Fenwick at Oklahoma Watch published a report with additional context from school officials, including a response from one of the three school board members who voted to create the school district police department last June.“Oklahoma School District at Center of First-in-Nation ICE Agreement Controversy Denies Signing Anything” - Ben Fenwick (Oklahoma Watch), March 19, 2026And this afternoon, Lionel Ramos from KOSU (the NPR affiliate in Oklahoma) shared what he learned through an email exchange with police chief Michael Coates, and phone calls with school officials.During a training on how to approach sexual assault investigations earlier this month, the district Police Chief Michael Coates mistakenly signed an agreement deputizing them with federal immigration enforcement authority through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the district superintendent Steven Cantrell.“So they submitted the information to sign up for additional training,” Cantrell said during a phone interview. “And then he got a notification that he had agreed to participate, and he’s like, ‘No, I didn’t.’”While Chief Coates’ response appears to indirectly confirm he did, in fact, sign the agreement in question, unfortunately we can’t review the actual document — at least for now. A link to the file is typically added to ICE’s list retroactively, up to two weeks after an agreement first shows up on the spreadsheet. Since the Caney Valley entry has already been removed from ICE’s list, we’ll likely need to rely on a successful public records request, or a transparent response from ICE and/or district officials, to get access to the signed copy.Note the “link pending” text in the ‘MOA’ (Memorandum of Agreement) column (screenshot below):A quick shout out to everyone in Oklahoma who reached out to me and Austin this week. What started with a Substack post last Monday night from Chicago led to the removal of ICE’s first K-12 school partnership, in Oklahoma, by Wednesday. And by Friday, we already had some initial answers on how this all happened.That’s largely thanks to the local journalists who are digging into these details, asking the right questions, and sharing important context with the public. Share Maxwell CommonsAs I mentioned above, there are several professional journalists and policy experts looking into this locally. I am not one of them. First, I’m not local. And while I take my work very seriously (see below ⤵️), it is not the work of a journalist by trade1. Nor is it the work of an academic researcher and professor, like Austin Kocher.I make this distinction because Ben Fenwick at Oklahoma Watch is probably right to call me an activist — at least in how I write about this stuff. This is also to say that my questions for Caney Valley school officials, the district’s police department, and ICE aren’t the questions of a journalist or research professor. They’re the questions of a concerned citizen, who happens to write about (and work in) this very complex and broken immigration system. Admittedly, they’re also the questions of a very frustrated Chicagoan, who watched ICE and CBP terrorize my city last summer and fall.When ICE tossed tear gas into a busy street just outside a nearby elementary school in early September, I got the following text from a teacher in my family who works at another school in our neighborhood:“Schools in the area can use whatever patrol support from community members as possible during dismissal.”I spent the next two months patrolling with my dog Titus around neighborhood schools most afternoons, whistle in pocket, along with hundreds of neighbors. To protect kids from the masked agents who Caney Valley Public Schools Police Department Officer Coates wanted to train and partner with. So, yes, I have questions.Ok, now to the fun stuff. As I replied to Greg Sargent’s Bluesky post from Thursday, I have some follow-up questions. That’s even more true now that we have responses from police chief Coates and school board member Clayton Ullrich. We’ll get to those in a second.But first, I have some questions for the other adult who signed this agreement, presumably ICE Deputy Director Charles Wall. As I mentioned last week, we can reasonably infer who signed for ICE — Wall replaced Madison Sheahan as ICE Deputy Director and the primary signer for 287(g) agreements in January.Charles Wall: ICE Deputy Director who signed an immigration enforcement partnership agreement with a K-12 school district.A few questions I’d love to ask Charles about the decision-making process leading up to signing this agreement:Were any concerns flagged by OPLA during the approval process here?Do you have any specific training or protocols in place for deputizing school resource officers working for ICE in an elementary school?Is it now ICE policy to encourage every law enforcement agency in the country to join the program?If so, are there any LE agencies that you wouldn’t accept?Finally, just…why? Ok, here is my current understanding of how this all happened, largely based on the emailed responses from Superintendent Cantrell and police chief Coates sent to journalists over the past six days.At a recent law enforcement training event, Coates was approached by an officer at an unidentified agency, who recommended ICE’s 287(g) program as a good training opportunity. While we know effectively no details about this officer who recommended the program as of now, we can presume they either work for an agency that is currently partnering with ICE, or had previously.My first question, for Officer Coates: Was that referring officer aware of your affiliation with a K-12 school-based police department? Second question, also for Officer Coates: What type of training program offered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be appropriate for an agency like yours?We were first told by superintendent Cantrell, in his email to Greg Sargent, that the agreement was mistakenly submitted by Coates, who thought he was simply seeking more information about the program.Third question, for Officer Coates: You presumably went to ICE’s website to download, fill out, and sign the multi-page Memorandum of Agreement, correct?Fourth question, Officer Coates: Understanding your goal was to '“gather more information” when you emailed the signed agreement back to ICE (according to their instructions for submitting a signed application) — had you seen the fact sheet and brochure available for download on ICE’s website? They’re both under the “How Can I Convince My Chief or Sheriff to Participate in 287(g)?” section.Fifth question: Have you ever had to sign a contract in order to “gather more information” about other training programs?Sixth question: If you were just gathering more information, how did you determine (correctly!) that the only “feasible” version of the 287(g) program for a school-based police force would be the Task Force Model?Now, to Superintendent Cantrell, question seven: Your school-based police force, which was just created eight months ago, is blindly applying for training funding by illegally (sorry, mistakenly) signing a contract with ICE on your behalf. Will there be any follow-up there?Finally, I’ll end with a question for all of us living in the U.S. in 2026. What are we even doing here? This was a decision made by adults who are responsible for the safety of hundreds of children. “It was a mistake” seems far too generous a resolution, and avoids a key learning point for all of us. Which is all to say: I don’t think we’ve seen the end to this story yet.1Ok, sometimes I take it less seriously.