17 Texas sheriffs are now approved to partner with ICE 287(g)
17 Texas sheriffs are now approved to partner with ICE
Immigration enforcement agreements booming under Trump
By Lise Olsen
Updated 4:44 pm, Friday, July 28, 2017
Partnerships between federal immigration agents and local police have boomed in 2017 - growing to a whopping 59 agencies in 18 states, according to a large batch of new contracts recently posted on Immigration and Customs Enforcement's website.
Seventeen Texas sheriffs departments are now approved to partner in ICE's so-called 287(g) program - by far the most agencies of any state. By comparison, only three Texas departments partnered with ICE in 2016 - and Harris County, the largest of the three, dropped the program earlier this year citing costs and civil rights concerns.
Officers from all of the new partner agencies - including Galveston, Montgomery and Waller County sheriff's offices in the Houston suburbs - will receive additional training and computers they can use to cross-check immigration data banks for people who are arrested and processed in local jails for anything from a traffic ticket to murder.
Other newly-approved Texas partners include rural sheriffs whose turf runs along a major highway corridor that stretches south from Houston to the US-Mexico border.
The 287(g) partnerships, a program under which ICE provides training to teach local officers how to consult its data banks and how to question detainees about their immigration status in local lock-ups, had declined under President Barack Obama.
But the partnerships have attracted renewed interest particularly from Texas agencies under pro-detention and deportation policies announced by President Donald Trump.
The partnerships get their name from section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that authorizes them. Local sheriffs who applied for the program in 2017 said they were excited about getting additional help to screen inmates for potentially dangerous immigrants or fugitives and better protect public safety. Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said his agency may send as many as 10 officers for training and tools needed to "confirm who individuals are before we release them" and determine whether they're wanted by federal immigration agencies or anyone else.
Texas now has by far the most partnerships of any state. By comparison just three Arizona law enforcement agencies currently have 287(g) partnership. Only the Orange County Sheriff's office currently partners with ICE in California.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzales still honors ICE detainer requests, but no longer dedicates 10 deputies to the county's jail-based ICE partnership full-time at an annual cost of $675,000.
Nationally, the program has grown from 38 departments in February to 59 as of Friday, based on ICE contract postings.
The ACLU had urged ICE not to approve the applications of many of those Texas departments. ACLU lawyers and other civil rights advocates have argued that ICE's detainer program even without additional local law enforcement already leads to civil rights violations and wrongful detentions and deportations through data mix-ups and errors.
Civil rights attorneys have raised concerns about Texas jail conditions and noted that several of the 287(g) partners - including Montgomery County - separately earn income from housing ICE detainees through detention contracts, giving agencies a profit motive to find reasons to detain more people longer.
http://www.chron.com/houston/article...E-11655927.php
