High-profile law enforcement activity across the US in 2025 has raised questions about overlapping jurisdictions.
How is law enforcement structured in the US?
There are about 17,600 government agencies involved in law enforcement in the US, including nearly 100 federal agencies and 17,500 state and local agencies.
Their jurisdictions are divided along a few lines: the type of crime, who’s involved, and geography, e.g.:
- The Drug Enforcement Administration within the Justice Department, as the name suggests, enforces laws and regulations having to do with controlled substances, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division, within the Treasury, investigates potential tax compliance violations.
- The seventy-two Offices of Inspectors General in federal agencies investigate fraud and abuse within those agencies.
- State and local law enforcement agencies, along with some federal agencies, generally focus on crime within their geographical boundaries.
This structure allows for considerable jurisdictional overlap, which in turn can create considerable confusion.
When do state and local police have jurisdiction?
Crime response is mainly the responsibility of state and local governments, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
State and local law enforcement agencies enforce laws according to their state and local legislation, which tends to be bound by geography: Local police departments are responsible for towns and cities. At the county level, there’s often an elected sheriff. State police perform statewide investigations across county or municipal borders, patrol highways, and cover areas with no local police of their own.
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When do federal law enforcement agencies get involved?
While most crimes are violations of state and local laws and therefore fall under state and local jurisdiction, federal agencies respond to federal crimes (such as bank robberies and kidnappings, as well as immigration violations), and some crimes that cross state lines.
But which federal agency? That usually depends on the nature of the crime. For terrorism cases, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the primary agency; for counterfeit currency, the Secret Service.
Explore federal law enforcement agencies.
In some cases, state and local law enforcement will partner with federal agencies to support investigations, creating collaborative “task forces.”
On other enforcement issues, particularly politically controversial ones like immigration enforcement, local agencies and federal agencies can have different views on how or whether to enforce the letter of the law. This can lead to conflicting policies on enforcement in certain areas.
Who oversees immigration enforcement?
The Department of Homeland Security, at the federal level, is mostly responsible for enforcing immigration law, with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) covering border areas and ports of entry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) responsible within the US borders.
Are local police required to work with ICE?
In most cases, no.
However, ICE can issue requests to local law enforcement agencies to hold detained non-citizen immigrants past their release so that ICE can arrest and deport them.
State and local law enforcement agencies can also partner with ICE through the 287(g) program (named for its section of the Immigration and Nationality Act) to allow these localized agencies to act as immigration officers and arrest unauthorized immigrants. Some states, including Florida and Georgia, have passed legislation requiring law enforcement agencies in the state to participate in the program.
What is a sanctuary city?
Other jurisdictions, such as the cities of Chicago and Portland, Oregon, have declared themselves “sanctuary cities” or “welcoming cities,” meaning they have committed to allowing unauthorized immigrants to live there and declined to partner with ICE on immigration enforcement. This might include restricting data shared with ICE or requiring local police to deny detention requests.
Multiple court actions have been filed to sort out what level of cooperation between ICE and local agencies is required by law. Appellate courts have held that ICE’s detention requests may violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against detention without probable cause. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has tried to block state and local governments from banning their agencies from cooperating with ICE.
When is the military involved in law enforcement?
The president is authorized by Congress to call on the military for civilian law enforcement under the Insurrection Act, which includes cases of “invasion, insurrection, or obstruction of the laws;” to protect civil rights; or in other cases when the president deems it impossible to enforce the law in a particular area without intervention.
What is the Posse Comitatus Act?
The Posse Comitatus Act is a part of US Code that restricts the president from using the Armed Forces for domestic law enforcement unless explicitly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Legal precedent indicates that it does not apply to the National Guard.
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Page sources and methodology
All of the data on the page was sourced directly from government agencies. The analysis and final review was performed by USAFacts.
