Trump is signing up local law officers to help with immigration enforcement

For years the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office in suburban Indianapolis has wanted to partner with federal immigration authorities to identify and detain immigrants who are in the US illegally and facing chargesPresident Joe Bidens administration never returned its calls the sheriffs office said But as President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigration Hamilton County deputies soon could become the first in Indiana empowered to carry out federal immigration duties and one of many nationally that Trumps administration hopes to enlist We definitely are joining Chief Deputy John Lowes told The Associated Press We want to collaborate with ICE to make sure we keep our community safeUnder Trump US Customs and Immigration Enforcement is reviving and expanding a decadesold program that trains local law officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation The 287g program named for a section of the 1996 law that created it currently applies only to those already jailed or imprisoned on chargesBut Trumps border czar Tom Homan recently told sheriffs that he wants to expand it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets reviving a model that former President Barrack Obama discontinued amid concerns about racial profiling Its unclear whether that could allow local officers to stop people solely to check their immigration statusOn Friday Florida Gov Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Highway Patrol had struck an agreement with ICE to interrogate arrest and detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and deliver them to federal authorities The arrangement will help fulfill the presidents mission to effectuate the largest deportation program in American history DeSantis said Advocates for immigrants meanwhile are raising alarm about new pacts that put local law officers on immigration enforcementAll of these agreements in practice have the same track record of racial profiling of sweeping in US citizens or people who have lawful status of having a chilling effect in terms of communities reporting crime to local law enforcement agencies said Nayna Gupta policy director at the nonprofit American Immigration CouncilA dormant program gets a jumpstartIn the early 2000s many of the initial participants in the 287g program had agreements that allowed them to enforce immigration laws in their communities not just their jails But problems arose in several places including ArizonaIn 2011 a civil rights investigation by the US Department of Justice found that deputies in Maricopa County which includes Phoenix had engaged in a pattern of racial profiling unlawful stops and arrests of Latinos The Department of Homeland Security ended its agreement with the county The program became the hallmark of farright antiimmigrant sheriffs as a means to feed people on the basis of their ethnicity into the deportation machine asserted Lena Graber senior staff attorney at the nonprofit Immigrant Legal Resource CenterIn recent years ICE has offered two types of 287g agreements to law enforcement agencies One model requires four weeks of training and allows local officers to question suspected noncitizens who are jailed on other charges and detain them for ICE The other model which Trump launched during his first term requires just eight hours of training and only allows local officers to serve federal immigration warrantsAs of December ICE had 135 agreements with sheriffs offices police departments and prison systems in 21 states with requests pending from 35 others Twothirds of the agreements were in just three states Florida Texas and North Carolina But no agreements had been signed during Bidens four years as president according to ICE dataOn his first day back in office Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to maximize 287g agreements for local law officers to investigate apprehend and detain immigrants At a recent National Sheriffs Association conference Homan said the administration is looking to lighten detention facility regulations and shorten the training to encourage greater collaboration with federal immigration officialsThe associations president Kieran Donahue applauded the announcement Theres going to be local sheriffs offices throughout the country no question theyre going to sign onto this program Donahue told the AP But Donahue is not planning to sign up his own department in Canyon County IdahoI dont have that kind of manpower he said adding I have no bed space in my facility Zero The Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2002 was the first to sign a 287g agreement with the federal government running a task force for immigration enforcement Twenty years later Florida became the first state to require all local agencies with county jails to join the program or inform the state why they couldntAfter a Venezuelan man who was illegally in the US killed University of Georgia student Laken Riley Georgia passed a law last year requiring local law enforcement agencies to apply for the program This year Republican lawmakers in about a dozen states are seeking to require or incentivize cooperative agreements with ICE One measure is sponsored by Texas state Rep David Spiller a Republican who also authored a law allowing any law enforcement officer to arrest migrants suspected of entering the country illegally That law is on hold amid a legal challengeSpiller said mandatory participation in ICE programs is essential President Trump and border czar Homan cannot remove and deport all the people that are a public safety threat to our state and our nation over the next year and a half without the help of our local law enforcement Spiller saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice 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