Talks between federal immigration authorities and county sheriffs across Minnesota could produce a plan that would give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) greater access to local jails.
The Minnesota Sheriff’s Association has been leading discussions with the Trump administration’s border czar Tom Homan in recent weeks that could allow counties to enter into agreements with the federal government allowing them to hold detainees after their scheduled release. The discussions have also led to improved access for immigration officials to take individuals into ICE custody.
Homan cited the “unprecedented cooperation” between federal authorities and county sheriffs in his announcement on Wednesday that the administration would immediately draw down 700 federal officers deployed to the Twin Cities as part of the increased immigration enforcement action dubbed Operation Metro Surge.
“We currently have an unprecedented number of counties communicating with us now and allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets,” Homan told reporters during Wednesday’s news conference from the Whipple Federal Building. “This is efficient and requires only one or two officers to assume custody of a criminal alien target, rather than eight or 10 officers going into the community and arresting that public safety threat.”
Homan arrived in Minnesota in what appeared to be an effort to diffuse the chaos caused by the enforcement operation that has resulted in the fatal shootings of Renee Macklin Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. In a news conference last week, Homan urged cooperation from state and local officials, and asked for more access to Minnesota jails and prisons in order to transfer immigrants with criminal records into federal custody.
James Stuart, the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association’s executive director, told Sahan Journal that discussions with federal officials in recent weeks have included around a dozen different options to improve cooperation, including what’s called a basic ordering agreement (BOA). The agreement is more of a housing contract, he said, which would allow counties that opt in to the agreement to house detainees in their jails for longer, similar to an ICE detainer.
An ICE detainer, sometimes called an immigration hold, is a written request from the federal agency asking a local jail to hold a detainee for an additional 48 hours after their scheduled release to give agents more time to decide whether to take the person into federal custody.
Stuart said county sheriffs cannot comply with ICE detainers and hold people past their release date because the detainer is a civil document. But, he said, if there is a contract between the county and federal officials, then the jail can house detainees longer and the federal government would pay for it.
“What the federal partners could bring to the table in that case would be the legal documents and the funding,” Stuart told Sahan Journal. “Because if jails are going to detain somebody for any federal agency, then the feds should be paying for it, not the local taxpayers.”
Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, who heads the agency operating one of the state’s largest county jail, said in a statement that she was aware of the proposed BOA but that her agency would not be pursuing such an agreement. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office does not comply or assist with immigration enforcement and does not ask inmates for their immigration status.
“Our policy has not changed,” Witt said. “At this point, we are having conversations with local, state, and federal leaders about solutions that serve our community.”
The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a formal legal opinion on immigration detainers about a year ago after Ramsey County Attorney John Choi raised concerns about whether a county can lawfully keep someone in custody. Minnesota law prohibits state and local law enforcement from placing an immigration hold on someone who should otherwise be released from custody, Ellison said.
The ACLU maintains that ICE uses detainers to imprison people without pending charges or probable cause, depriving them of constitutional rights to due process.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty echoed that interpretation in a statement, pointing out that county jails hold detainees before their cases are resolved. Transferring them to ICE before they’re convicted “strips our community of the accountability it deserves and harms victims by robbing them of a court process,” she said.
“[The federal government’s] offer to pay county sheriffs to violate state law is outrageous,” Moriarty said. “There are legal ways for DHS to arrest people coming out of our jails, such as obtaining a warrant from a judge. Yet they are choosing to pursue illegal pathways.”
