On Friday, the Maine Wire reported on a leaked ICE memo that listed hundreds of jails and police agencies around the country that it claimed do not honor ICE detainer requests or offer only limited cooperation in helping ICE apprehend illegal aliens wanted to deportation.
Now, two Maine sheriffs whose jails were listed in a leaked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report as offering “limited cooperation” to the federal immigration agency are pushing back on what they say is an unfair characterization.
[RELATED: Two Maine Jails Are Releasing Illegal Aliens Without Notifying ICE, Agency Says…]
ICE lodges immigration detainers against unlawfully present non-citizens who have been arrested on criminal charges and whom the agency has probable cause to believe are deportable from the U.S.
Detainers are a request from ICE to local law enforcement agencies that they temporarily hold the illegal aliens in custody and notify ICE upon their release, so that the aliens can be transferred to the custody of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
On the immigration detainer form (I-247), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is meant to indicate to the local law enforcement agency the grounds on which they are requesting that the jail hold the alien in custody.
Those reasons can include DHS having reason to believe the alien may be subject to deportation due to a prior felony conviction or three misdemeanor convictions, the alien being charged with a violent crime or drug trafficking, or having re-entered the country illegally.
DHS may also specify that the alien in custody is in ongoing removal proceedings, or has already been ordered removed from the U.S. by a Department of Justice immigration court.
The Cumberland County and Hancock County jails in Maine were identified by ICE in their June “Detainer Acceptance Tracker” report as two of 146 institutions nationwide that accept immigration detainers in a “limited fashion.”
According to ICE’s report, this designation means that the Cumberland County and Hancock County jails do take custody of the noncitizens, but do not provide adequate notification of their release in order to arrange for the orderly transfer of noncitizens to ERO custody.
However, both the Cumberland County and Hancock County Sheriff’s offices said the ICE designation doesn’t tell the full story as to how they interact with ICE when it comes to illegal alien offenders.
Timothy Richardson, the Jail Administrator at the Hancock County Jail, told the Maine Wire on Monday that the jail is in no way bypassing immigration detainers, and was unsure why ICE indicated the Hancock County Jail was in “limited cooperation” with the detainer process.
Richardson said that when ICE lodges an immigration detainer against an individual held at the Hancock County Jail, the jail honors the detainer and holds the individual in custody until an ICE field agent can come to the jail to take them into DHS custody — usually a detainment period of only a few hours.
He added that as far as he is aware, Hancock County Jail has had no issues with providing ICE adequate notice when releasing illegal aliens from custody.
Cumberland Sheriff Kevin Joyce, while claiming that ICE characterizing the Cumberland County Jail as being in “limited cooperation” with immigration detainers was not fair, defended his stance of not complying with immigration detainers — a policy the jail has had since 2017.
“We work very well with ICE and we hold their inmates on a routine basis,” Joyce wrote in an email to the Maine Wire on Friday, adding that the jail at that time was holding 11 ICE inmates.
Joyce explained that his decision to stop honoring ICE detainers was rooted in a concern for county taxpayers having to pay for a civil lawsuit if the jail were to be holding an inmate without probable cause.
“We stopped honoring detainers in 2017, when I learned that several jails and Sheriffs in the United States had been sued civilly by individuals who had been held on a detainer for ICE, but were either in the US legally, or ICE had never advised the Sheriff or Jail that the individual was free to go,” Joyce wrote.
“This sets the Sheriff and his jail up for false imprisonment allegations for holding the individual beyond his/her release date,” he added.
In his statement to the Maine Wire, Joyce also denied that the jail does not provide proper notice to ICE when releasing illegal alien inmates, despite the federal agency’s indication to the contrary.
The Cumberland County Sheriff clarified that instead of holding inmates for 48 hours, as requested under immigration detainers, the Sheriff’s Office asks ICE to send an agent to the jail to take the inmate into ICE custody, thereby pushing any liability for a false imprisonment issue onto the federal agency.
“This process ensures us, like every other law enforcement agency that uses our facility, that THEY have probable cause to continue holding the individual,” Joyce wrote.
“In the past, the detainer process was used to give ICE 48 hours to determine whether the individual was a noncitizen and get a warrant,” he continued. “The problem is like I mentioned above in some cases throughout the country, the person being held was a legal citizen or the jail was never informed to release the individual.”
“That created problems and I am attempting to protect the Cumberland County Taxpayers from an unwarranted lawsuit, by making sure that ICE does due diligence in confirming that they (ICE) have probable cause to hold the person beyond their legal release date or time, before we make a mistake and get sued,” he added.
When asked why he would limit his cooperation with ICE, Joyce stated that “providing probable cause to continue to hold the individual is all that is necessary for us to hold an inmate beyond our obligation to release them on state charges.”
“If ICE comes through the door with an individual in custody, just like any other law enforcement agency, we don’t question the arrest or their probable cause,” he wrote. “To be clear, we are asking for documentation that gives us the authorization to hold the individual. A detainer is merely a request and has no legal standing.”
Joyce said that his process for requiring ICE to provide probable cause for immigration detainers “seems to be working fine.”
“I have not heard of any issues as our staff and the ICE staff are working well,” Joyce wrote. “My position on the required paperwork is not anti-immigration, it is to protect the county and its property taxpayers from paying out for lawsuits that could have been avoided.”
Joyce’s fear of a lawsuit hitting county taxpayers may be justified.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been involved in several civil lawsuits in the last decade against both ICE and local law enforcement agencies in cases where it is alleged that U.S. citizens were unlawfully detained under ICE immigration detainers.
In these cases, the ACLU has alleged that ICE routinely issues immigration holds against individuals without probable cause to believe that they are removable from the U.S., in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The recommendation of the ACLU to law enforcement agencies is to decline to honor any ICE detainer that is not accompanied by an arrest warrant signed by a judge, which must meet the probable cause standard of proof.
A spokesperson from ICE, meanwhile, said the detainer report that listed Hancock and Cumberland was not intended for public consumption. The spokesperson downplayed any potential tensions between the agency and two of Maine’s jails.
The ICE spokesperson told the Maine Wire that while the Detainer Acceptance Tracker report is dated June 2024, the information in the report — meant for internal reference only — has not been actively tracked in several years and could be erroneous.
“ERO Boston enjoys a highly valued and mutually beneficial partnership with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office,” the ICE spokesperson said in a statement to the Maine Wire on Monday. “We consider them an ally in our shared struggle to prioritize public safety in Maine.”
“Partnerships like the one we enjoy with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office allow ERO Boston to operate successfully in what can be a difficult and complex environment,” they said.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="30266 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=30266">1 Comment
Shocking! The Shenna Bellows’ former organization, the ACLU, threatens to sue ICE and law enforcement. They should be renamed the CCP Civil Liberties Union.