President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to crack down on immigration and start mass deportations on day one of his presidency. He’s promised to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” and has made it clear that he will double down on what he did during his first presidency — without regard for the law, decency, or common sense.
Trump’s extreme anti-immigrant stance and discriminatory rhetoric are a central part of his political platform – and his allies are more emboldened than ever to follow his lead.
So it’s no surprise that U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman, who has promised to work with the Trump administration on immigration, singled out Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr in her constituent newsletter last month with allegations that his office is “foiling” Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s efforts in Wyoming.
Is he? Let’s look at the facts.
Carr told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that his office works closely with ICE, reporting every arrest of any “foreign national” and adhering to any detainment requests ordered by a judge. While some sheriffs are comfortable holding detainees past their release eligibility without judicial approval, Carr is not. It’s not within the Sheriff’s Department’s jurisdiction to enforce federal immigration law, he said.
Carr is correct.
Law enforcement agencies must decline any ICE detainer request that does not have a judicial warrant in order to minimize the risk and liability of holding a person in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
But let’s take a step back for a moment. What exactly are ICE detainers?
An ICE detainer, or an “immigration hold,” is a paper form that immigration officials send to local and state law enforcement agencies, asking them to imprison a person in their custody beyond the time when they should be released – because charges were dropped, the person was released on bail or recognizance, the person was acquitted, or the person completed a jail or prison sentence – so that ICE officials have extra time to decide whether to take that person into federal custody for a possible immigration violation.
Normally, the government needs to get a warrant or bring someone in front of a judge before it can put them in jail. That’s how the Fourth Amendment usually works — but that’s not what’s happening here.
For years, ICE has been issuing detainers based solely on the fact that it has initiated an investigation to determine whether a person is subject to deportation. In other words, the federal government has been asking local and state agencies to detain people — without a warrant, without probable cause, and without a hearing or a judge’s approval — merely because a federal immigration official somewhere suspects the person might be a non-citizen ICE could try to deport. That’s a far cry from the traditional evidentiary standard usually required to lock someone up.
As you might expect, given ICE’s detain first, investigate later approach, immigration detainers have caused countless people to be held in jail unlawfully — even including some lawful U.S. citizens or legal residents – based on mere suspicion.
And that’s wholly unconstitutional. Because don’t forget – the fundamental constitutional protections of due process and equal protection embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to every person, regardless of immigration status. That’s why ICE’s detainer practices have been the subject of litigation across the country, including several cases brought by the ACLU and other advocates.
More than the threat of litigation, however, when local law enforcement agencies aid ICE’s federal immigration efforts without judicial oversight, ordinary police work becomes more complex, straining trust between residents and officers.
To do their job and protect communities, law enforcement needs people from all walks of life to report crimes, to act as witnesses, and to reach out when public safety issues arise. A safe and vibrant community, after all, relies on everyone’s ability to be able to reach out to law enforcement officers when there is a need for police resources without fear. When Wyomingites live in fear of deportation at the hands of our local law enforcement, state officials, or by the mere act of walking out the door, our state is less safe, less healthy, and it does not represent our Wyoming values.
Every person in this country is entitled to the rights of the Constitution. We applaud Sheriff Carr and his colleagues across the country who uphold those rights and we urge all counties to do the same. Local police must work to keep all Wyoming communities safe – not put their time and resources into immigration efforts beyond their jurisdiction that instill fear and destroy trust.
A version of this column also appeared in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
