photo by: Steven Allen Adams

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Thursday he would cooperate with President Donald Trump on immigration enforcement measures.

CHARLESTON — Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a document Thursday allowing West Virginia’s correctional officers to assist immigration enforcement officials and provided an update on his visit to the White House for the signing of an executive order banning transgender student-athletes from participating in women’s and girls sports.

During a press conference Thursday afternoon at the Governor’s Reception Room at the State Capitol Building, Morrisey signed a letter of intent to participate in the 287(g) Program through the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.

The 287(g) Program allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to work with state, county, and city law enforcement officers to take part in specific immigration enforcement roles. Morrisey’s letter will allow state correctional officers to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in transportation of suspected illegal immigrants in state custody to ICE facilities.

“This does a few things,” Morrisey explained. “One, it frees up the ICE agents to conduct the important work of keeping our country safe and to help keeping West Virginia safe. It also speeds up the deportation process. West Virginia has never applied for this program until now.”

Last week, Morrisey announced that the number of illegal immigrants with prior criminal histories being held in state correctional facilities on behalf of ICE rose to 72, though 10 of those individuals were transferred to Kentucky. Of those, 13 were already serving sentences, including one serving a sentence for murder. Another 36 are in state correctional facilities for violations of immigration laws, such as re-entering the U.S. illegally or who were set to be deported prior to absconding.

Morrisey signed of an executive order directing the state Department of Homeland Security, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the West Virginia State Police, and county and city law enforcement to cooperate with ICE and other federal law enforcement officials. He also sent letters to state and local law enforcement agencies urging them to comply with state and federal executive orders regarding illegal immigration.

Morrisey said he expects ICE to quickly approve a memorandum of understanding with West Virginia to participate in the 287(g) Program. Morrisey also said the state will participate in the Warrant Service Officer Program, which allows state and local law enforcement to serve ICE administrative warrants.

“For all those who keep saying that illegal immigration doesn’t touch on West Virginia, you’re dead wrong,” Morrisey said. “I can say that the next four years are going to be critical to taking our country back and West Virginia is going to work on this because these are issues that affect our state. Don’t let people fool you and pretend that they’re not.”

Morrisey was at the White House on Wednesday for the signing by President Donald Trump of an executive order barring transgender girls and women who were born as males from participating in sports with biological females.

“It was a terrific event,” Morrisey said. “If you could have been there, you would have seen the reactions of these incredible young female athletes who were just excited that they’re going to have sanity restored to their lives. And I’m hopeful we’re not going to have to worry about men playing in women’s sports for a long, long time.”

Morrisey joined Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer at the University of Kentucky and the ambassador for Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative advocacy group.

The executive order rescinds the previous interpretation of Title IX of the 1972 Civil Rights Act by former President Joe Biden allowing for federal protections for transgender athletes. Title IX prohibits schools from discriminating against girls and women, including in athletics. The executive order also bars students who are assigned male at birth from restrooms designated for girls and women.

“We think the biggest import of that (executive order) was with the schools,” Morrisey said. “So, when there are federal funds that are going to the schools, there can’t be that clamp or the efforts to force those schools to integrate to have men playing sports with women. That’s what the Biden administration tried to do. I view what President Trump did yesterday as a reversal of Biden administration policy. That obviously makes our job easier here in West Virginia because we’ve been working pushing back on that.”

The order empowers the Department of Education to investigate any violations. It instructs sports governing bodies to develop guidance to implement the order and instructs Secretary of State Marco Rubio to demand changes with the International Olympic Committee.

Morrisey was outspoken on the campaign trail last year about preserving sports for biological girls and women, including campaigning with Gaines, who made headlines in 2022 after competing against Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who was on the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team. Gaines is one of several college athletes suing the NCAA over its policies regarding transgender athletes.

Last year, Morrisey — serving his final year of his third term as attorney general — said he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals allowing Bridgeport Middle School student Becky Pepper-Jackson — a transgender girl — to participate on her school’s girls middle school track team.

House Bill 3293, passed by the West Virginia Legislature in 2021 and since called the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” requires student-athletes in middle school, high school or college to participate in sports that match the student’s sex assigned at the time of their birth. The law applies to sports regulated by the NCAA and other college interscholastic organizations.

Pepper-Jackson and her mother Heather Jackson filed a lawsuit against HB 3292 shortly after the law went into effect. At the time, Pepper-Jackson had planned to participate in her middle school’s track and cross-country teams.

The case found its way to the fourth circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. After a lower court allowed the law to be enforced, the fourth circuit overruled that decision, preventing the law from being enforced while the case was pending. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an effort by Morrisey to appeal the fourth circuit decision, preventing HB 3293 from being enforced.

Gaines advocated last year in West Virginia for House Bill 5243, creating the Women’s Bill of Rights Act. The bill passed the House but never made it out of the 60-day session. HB 5243 would have defined sex-based terms in State Code for “woman,” “girl” and “mother” to refer to cisgender females with narrow exceptions.

HB 5243 also would have prohibited the unfair treatment of males and females and allowed the provision of separate single-sex living facilities, locker rooms, bathrooms, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers based on biological sex. During his first week as governor last month, Morrisey announced a partnership with the Legislature to pass a law similar to HB 5243 setting legal definitions for gender in state code.

“I think we had an indication that we wanted to work with the Legislature to better define men and women that we thought there was room for that,” Morrisey said. “So, that would apply to various issues on the state level.”