President Donald Trump’s executive orders and policy changes outline his plan to carry out mass deportations and crack down on unauthorized entries into the United States.
Some actions were felt immediately. Others face legal challenges. Some may take years to happen, if ever, but have generated fear in immigrant communities.
The Trump administration has highlighted participation of other agencies in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) operations. They include the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, all part of the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department’s Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol.
The Trump administration’s plea for state and local help in enforcing his immigration deportation faces a brick wall in New York and many other states along with in city and county police.
Through long-standing Supreme Court precedent, the U.S. Constitution prevents the federal government from commandeering states to enforce federal laws. While the federal government may use its own resources for federal immigration enforcement, the court ruled in Printz v. United States that the federal government cannot ‘impress into its service—and at no cost to itself—the police officers of the 50 States.’ This balance of power between the federal government and state governments is a touchstone of our American system of federalism.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, together with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, led a coalition of 11 attorneys general in issuing a joint statement addressing a memorandum from a Trump political appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice addressing state and local involvement in federal immigration enforcement:
“As state attorneys general, we have a responsibility to enforce state laws – and we will continue to investigate and prosecute crimes, regardless of immigration status. We will not be distracted by the President’s mass deportation agenda,” stated New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“Despite what he may say to the contrary, the President cannot unilaterally re-write the Constitution. The President has made troubling threats to weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice’s prosecutorial authority and resources to attack public servants acting in compliance with their state laws, interfering with their ability to build trust with the communities they serve and protect. Right now, these vague threats are just that: empty words on paper. But rest assured, our states will not hesitate to respond if these words become illegal actions," she added.
Joining Attorney General James and California Attorney General Bonta in issuing this joint statement are the attorneys general of: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
On Thursday (2/6) Wayne County Sheriff Rob Milby released this statement: "Our policy at the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office has been very consistent over many years. We do not stop anyone based upon suspicion of illegal status in this country. We do not detain anyone based upon immigration status in this country. Only federal authorities have the jurisdiction to enforce civil immigration violations.
I am on the National Sheriff’s Association Border Security Committee, and am Chairman of the New York State Sheriff’s Association Border Security Committee. Last weekend I was in a meeting in Washington DC that included Tom Homan, President Trump’s appointed Border Czar. From his mouth to my ears, I heard Mr. Homan say that ICE is not conducting raids anywhere. ICE does not conduct sweeps either. ICE targets known criminals that are in this country illegally, and in the present, they are targeting known criminals. In the search for those individuals, if ICE officials encounter others that are here illegally, they will not turn a blind eye. They will do their job. There have been rumors out in just about every community that ICE is conducting raids. The rumor mill has not escaped Wayne County. As of this writing, ICE has not had activity here that I am aware of.
As far as the Sheriff’s Office responsibility in all of this, there is none, other than to tell you what we know. If ICE does come into this county, and something happens where they need our immediate response, we will certainly respond. What we do in that response will be dictated by the nature of that call. Will we collaborate to conduct immigration sweeps? No. If we have reason to believe that someone has committed a criminal federal offense, we will certainly detain that person and contact the appropriate authorities. If we are housing someone at our jail based upon our state laws and we are presented with a detainer by federal authorities, we will not hold that person any longer than what the sentencing judge’s/justice’s signature authorizes. We will notify federal authorities of the time that release will take place. If those authorities arrive to take custody of that person, we will facilitate that transfer.
I am concerned about the security and the future of Wayne County. The issues regarding immigration are being given the face of a family being denied the chance of the American Dream, by those that oppose it. That is not how I see it. I look at this from the angle of Public Safety, Homeland Security, and the Humanitarian issue concerning the over 300,000 missing children that were drawn into this. Cartels have been infiltrating our borders for years, trafficking humans and trafficking drugs that kill us. Last year, there were a greater number of encounters on the north than there have been in the last 17 years, combined. (Those numbers came from the Swanton sector that covers New York and Vermont.) In the last two years over 66% of our overdose deaths in Wayne County involved Fentanyl, which we know is trafficked across our borders. Known and suspected terrorists are being encountered at our borders. Their preference is the northern border, where the numbers are 6 times higher than that of the southern encounters. The north has few obstructions in place when it comes to topography. Anyone with determination can walk across from Canada to New York, undetected. It is wide open, and the cartels have delivered people to our state. Their destination? We do not know. What I do know is that there are state routes that lead to, through, and into Wayne County. Those people paid far more to get here illegally than if they had taken advantage of legal routes. There are foreign gangs that have infiltrated our New York borders and are running criminal operations in our state. These are the things that are not being told on the evening news...
For more on this story See Page C-10 in this weekend's edition.
