Minnesota sheriffs ink new agreements with ICE to identify immigrants for deportation

NINA MOINI: Well, five counties in Minnesota have recently made agreements with ICE to help with immigration enforcement. What that means is different depending on the county, and it's separate from previous agreements to hold ICE detainees in three local jails across the state. Sahan Journal reporter Andrew Hazzard is following this story and joins me now on the line to explain. Thanks for being here again and sharing your reporting with us, Andrew.

ANDREW HAZZARD: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: So with issues surrounding ICE right now, it's so important to have this deep, thorough reporting and really break down what things look like and the different processes. So to start with some context, immigration cases play out in civil courts, correct, separate from the criminal justice system? Can you describe when these two systems would overlap?

ANDREW HAZZARD: Yeah, that's a great point. So as you mentioned, immigration matters are civil. They're handled. Here in Minnesota, we have in immigration court down at Fort Snelling. And those are not technically considered criminal procedures. What can happen is that if someone is going through a criminal proceeding, let's say someone gets arrested for drunk driving or something like that, and if they are not a citizen, that can be communicated, potentially, to immigration authorities.

And that can result in a placement of what's called an immigration detainer, which is where ICE or the federal agencies would say, hey, we want to hold on to this person for extra time beyond their criminal proceeding or their criminal serving of time in a local jail or whatnot so that we can engage them in this civil process, potentially, for deportation. So it's basically having an interaction in a criminal system could set you up for having an interaction through that civil immigration process.

NINA MOINI: OK, so that's been ongoing. Now, these agreements that you're reporting on that have been signed, really, just since late February, it sounds like, can you describe how those came about and where?

ANDREW HAZZARD: Yes. So when President Trump retook office this January, he signed an executive order to restart a portion of what's known as the 287(g) program. That is named for a clause in a 1996 immigration law that created these partnerships between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement.

So the way that these can play out is that different local law enforcement agencies can sign up for these agreements with ICE and enter what's known as a memorandum of agreement. And they agree to perform certain duties. They receive additional training for a few officers, in this case, in Minnesota, it'd be sheriff's deputies, to carry out some of these immigration enforcement, which can be in addition to their normal policing activity, or it could be at county jails.

So this program has existed for close to 30 years. But in 2012, the Obama administration ended a major component of the program, which is known as the task force model. Now, the task force model deputizes immigration authority to officers who have gone through this training, where they can basically interrogate people about their immigration status or investigate them from an immigration standpoint in the course of their normal police work.

And this was banned in 2012. People might be familiar with the case of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County. That was a famous case, where many people of Latino backgrounds were being profiled aggressively in this part of Arizona as part of this program. And it became a concern for civil liberties and was dropped.

President Trump reactivated that portion of the program when he retook office, and it launched this invitation to local law enforcement agencies to sign up for these 287(g) agreements. And so far, here in Minnesota, since the end of February, five counties have done so. There are three counties up in Lake Country, North Central Minnesota, Cass, Crow Wing, and Itasca counties, who have signed up for this task force model.

There are two counties in Southern Minnesota, Jackson and Freeborn County, that have signed up for models that have existed this entire time, which allow deputies to question or flag people that are in their jail system who might be in this country without permission or that sort of thing to communicate that with immigration authorities.

NINA MOINI: OK, so I understand that you-- obviously, as a journalist, you did reach out to the sheriffs and the counties. And only the Sheriff from Crow Wing County got back to you. What did they say was their reasoning here? It sounded like, from your article, that they were saying this isn't a cause for, really, concern.

ANDREW HAZZARD: Right. So as you mentioned, I did try and contact all five of these sheriffs. I did hear back from Sheriff Eric Klang, who called me back and talked a little bit about his reasoning for getting involved up in Crow Wing County. That's where Brainerd is. So his rationale was that, look, this is a new program that's opening up for us to cooperate with federal enforcement, and we're going to sign up for it.

He has not yet put his deputies who are going to participate in the program through this training. They're supposed to take 40 hours of training with ICE before they really get going. And they don't know exactly what it's going to look like. And Sheriff Klang told me that, when he was talking to ICE about it, that it seemed clear to him that ICE isn't exactly sure what it wants these agreements to look like with local law enforcement, either. This program has basically been dormant for over a dozen years. And so figuring out how to revive it and what it looks like is still up in the air.

But his line to me was that this is about cooperating with the feds and that he does not intend to turn his office or have his deputies out there doing immigration-style raids. But these types of agreements were cause for concern in the past due to the potential of profiling, of civil liberty violations, and also people who aren't necessarily involved in any criminal activity being caught up as other people are pursued through these sorts of agreements.

NINA MOINI: So what is next? Could we see legal challenges to these agreements? It sounds like they're above board from what they know, bringing back this program that you said was dormant. But where are immigration attorneys on this and other advocates? Is this something that you're seeing people wanting to jump on and take it to the courts, or where does everything stand?

ANDREW HAZZARD: I think right now the understanding is that this program, from a federal standpoint, is legal and that there's not too much that can be done. When the federal government wants to do something, they can do it. Of course, the legal question that's up for debate. But this program has a history. It has a precedent. The opportunity for a legal challenge to this program would certainly be in the way in which it is carried about in the State of Minnesota, and whether or not that agrees with the state's law and constitution.

The Minnesota attorney general's office this year put out an opinion to the Ramsey County attorney's office that was basically saying that Minnesota does not allow for local law enforcement, local jails, to hold somebody for an additional amount of time because of a request from immigration authorities.

So let's say someone is in for a crime at your local jail, they would typically be able to be released on some sort of bond after 24 hours or any amount of time. They'd be able to be released. Sometimes immigration will say, hey, we want to put a hold on this person. Please hold them for an extra 48 hours. The Minnesota attorney general's office is saying you can't do that here. You're not supposed to do that here. That does not necessarily overlap with these 287(g) agreements.

NINA MOINI: OK.

ANDREW HAZZARD: So how and if a legal challenge could come to these operating in Minnesota, that remains unclear. But these are cases that have been fought out by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union in other states. We've seen that in Colorado. And so I do think it could be a situation, whether it's in Minnesota or elsewhere, that is ripe for a legal challenge or something to go through the court system. But these are all very new. And so we're going to have to wait and see.

NINA MOINI: Sure. Yeah, like a lot of things right now. Andrew, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your important reporting with us again. I really appreciate your time.

ANDREW HAZZARD: Thank you. Good to be with you.

NINA MOINI: Andrew Hazzard is a reporter for Sahan Journal. You can find his story at mprnews.org.