The Local Sheriffs Gearing Up to Help Trump Carry Out Mass Deportations (MSN news network)
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Well, I'm not McLovin, but, since you asked...
'Not going to cooperate': Border state sheriffs vow to defy Trump’s mass deportations plan
https://www.alternet.org/sheriffs-d..._medium=email&utm_campaign=Dec.17.2024_9.29pm
President-elect Donald Trump's advisors have been hoping county sheriffs in border states will assist with the incoming administration's mass deportation campaign. But several sheriffs are already publicly promising to not lift a finger.
According to a Tuesday report in WIRED magazine, Trump's top Trump immigration advisors like Tom Homan and Stephen Miller have been having conversations with several far-right sheriffs who have expressed an interest in helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remove immigrants from the United States. But that effort is unlikely to pick up traction, both for legal reasons and because other sheriffs have said they already have their hands full and don't want to take on more work.
Currently, ICE's 287(g) program allows for state and local law enforcement to collaborate with ICE in its efforts "to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of noncitizens." However, this does not include sheriffs themselves rounding up and detaining undocumented immigrants. Additionally, no federal funding has been appropriated to any sheriffs' offices that help ICE, meaning just 125 out of 3,081 sheriff's offices in the U.S. have signed up. And Yuma County, Arizona Sheriff Leon Wilmot told WIRED that the Supreme Court has already established that enforcing immigration law is outside the jurisdiction of local police departments and sheriffs' offices.
READ MORE: 'Quickly get into problems': These 3 obstacles could slow down Trump's mass deportations
"[T]hat's not our realm of responsibility," Wilmot said. "If we wanted to do immigration law, we would go work for Border Patrol."
The push for sheriffs to assist the incoming administration has been led by retired sheriff Tom Mack, who is the head of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). Mack told WIRED he's been exchanging voice and text messages with Homan about getting more sheriffs involved with deportations. Homan has previously promised to build "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen." But Wilmot said "no one listens to" Mack, that he "hasn't been a sheriff in a long time" and that he "pushes his own agenda."
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, who is a Democrat, told WIRED that he wasn't invited to an event Homan hosted in his state last month, even though Hathaway's jurisdiction includes some of the nation's biggest ports of entry. He added that he would refuse any calls to help the Trump administration deport immigrants, as it would hurt his standing in his county.
"I'm not going to cooperate, because 95 percent of the residents of the town where I live, where my county is, are Hispanic,” Hathaway said. “I'm not going to go checking the documents of practically every single person in my county to determine their immigration status, because that would create distrust between law enforcement and all the people in my community."
READ MORE: 'Wait until 2025': Trump's former ICE chief makes chilling promise at far-right conference
The sheriffs bucking calls to assist with mass deportations even include some of Trump's biggest supporters in the law enforcement community. Livingston County, Michigan Sheriff Mike Murphy — who hosted a pro-Trump rally in a building owned by the sheriff's office — told the outlet that he isn't interested in using county resources to help with federal immigration law enforcement.
"I still have a county to do police work in,” Murphy said. “Just because the president says, 'Hey, go out and round them up,' that is not all of a sudden gonna move to the top of my priority list. If somebody's house is getting broken into, that's my priority. If somebody's involved in an injury crash and they're laying on the side of the road, that's my priority. I've got cases that are open.”
Other border state sheriffs who have come out against calls to help the Trump administration round up migrants include Val Verde County, Texas Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez and Brewster County, Texas Sheriff Ronny Dodson. According to Dodson, the incoming Trump administration giving sheriffs the authority to jail migrants could "break" county law enforcement.
"I’m not gonna let the government tell me what to do in my job," Dodson said.
Why did you make it so easy for me to dunk on you? My bad, you're a civilization-hating, brain-damaged Obiden clone. Even Jerry Brown is embarrassed for you.
Brown suggested that national Democrats are recognizing the need for immigration control, and he hinted that a more orderly process may happen under the Trump administration.
“Now Democrats are responding, saying we need to control the border, we need a more regular process to bring immigrants in,” he said. “Now under Trump, we may have hope to get a good process by which people can come into America, be screened, do it in a lawful way, and the numbers are going to have to be restricted substantially.”
Why do you lie so much? Is that your nature, to obscure the truth? I have no time to deal with people like you. Just deal with it.
