The Trump administration is considering ways to restart a program to deputize state and local law enforcement officials to place suspected undocumented immigrants under arrest.

The Obama administration terminated the program after claims were made that the arrests led to incidents of racial profiling, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Russell Hott told the National Sheriffs' Association at a recent conference that the "task force model," as the program is called, could be restarted, reports The Washington Post Wednesday.

The program allows ICE to pick out certain state and local officials who would be allowed to question and arrest immigrants they encounter during patrols.

The program was stopped in December 2012 after lawsuits, complaints, and federal investigations revealed that law enforcement officers were harassing immigrants and subjecting them to inhumane conditions.

The task forces are part of the 287(g) section of the Immigration and Nationality Act created in 1996 in a crackdown on illegal immigration.

The program now only operates in jails, with more than 130 agencies allowing ICE to train offices in enforcing immigration laws against inmates who were arrested on local crime charges.

The trained officers use federal databases, question inmates, and prepare paperwork for ICE to deport suspects, mainly in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has promoted the program.

In other locations, law enforcement officials serve notices to immigrants being held in their jails that they are in violation of immigration laws.

Advocates say that the task forces could once again result in lawsuits.

American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project senior staff attorney Spencer Amdur commented that local officials can't make arrests without probable cause.

"We've seen whenever these have been used, they've led to all sorts of illegal stops and racial profiling and just unlawful enforcement activity by officers who don't really know immigration law well enough," Amdur said. "There's a reason these went away and haven't come back for years."

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