WASHINGTON

Some sheriffs dispute claim they're not cooperating with immigration officials

MacKenzie Elmer

The Des Moines Register

Thousands gather Feb. 16, 2017, at the Iowa Capitol grounds in Des Moines during the Day Without Immigrants march.

DES MOINES — Four Iowa sheriffs are among officials across the USA who are questioning the accuracy of a Department of Homeland Security report that lists jurisdictions refusing to cooperate with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants.

An executive order that President Trump signed in January prompted the government to document jurisdictions not cooperating with federal efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally.

The first list was released Monday, citing 206 examples of immigrants that local jails supposedly released from custody despite requests from federal agents. The requests, often called "detainers," have taken on a greater role in the immigration debate under Trump, who opposes local policies that grant leniency to people in the country illegally.

The top five counties nationwide for Jan. 28 to Feb. 3:

1. Clark County, Nev., which has Las Vegas as its largest city, 51.
2. Nassau County, N.Y., on Long Island just east of Queens, 38.
3. Cook County, Ill., which has Chicago as its largest city, 13.
4. Montgomery County, Iowa, population 10,000, about 45 miles southeast of Omaha, Neb., 12.
5. Snohomish County, Wash., just north of Seattle, 12.

"These counties have a policy of noncooperation," according to the report, which said the denials of immigration holds took place that week although the arrests occurred as early as 2014. Also in the top 10 was Franklin County, Iowa, — another 10,000-resident county but about 90 miles north of Des Moines — that the report said denied five requests to tie for No. 8.

But Montgomery County Sheriff Joe Sampson and Franklin County Sheriff Linn Larson, both Republicans, said their departments did not receive any detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement during that period.

"If we get a detainer, we hold them," Sampson said. "I don’t know how the hell we made the list."

Sampson said no one from ICE has contacted his department since October. Larson said his department has proactively flagged ICE to check the immigration status of five people since the start of the year.

Shawn Neudauer, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said Thursday that his agency is standing by its information.

"These are jurisdictions that at some point in the past have declared themselves to be noncompliant with ICE detainers," Neudauer said.

Counties that disagree with the reported information will be instructed to take it up with their local field office, he said.

Sac County Sheriff Kenneth McClure said he plans to do that. Sac County was listed in the report for refusing Feb. 11, 2014, to detain an individual from Mexico jailed on a drug-possession charge.

In some cases, older detainer requests were included in the report because ICE never was informed that the inmate had been released from custody, Neudauer said. Some of those hold requests were still active in Immigration and Customs Enforcement records when the agency created the report.

But McClure, a Republican, said his jail staff has checked records dating to 2013 and found no record of a detainer matching those facts. He said he has received angry calls to his office questioning whether he's doing his job since the report was released.

"Quite frankly, if ICE wants to detain these people so they can determine whether they're illegal or not, then maybe they should come and get them," McClure said.

In Pennsylvania, Franklin County officials also said they were incorrectly placed in the top 10, among those tying for eighth place with five issued but denied detainers.

“We have checked the dates cited in the ICE report, and there were three inmates requested to be held, not five,” County Commissioner Chairman David Keller said. “The jail has not released anyone to the street that ICE wanted.”

Of the three that were requested to be held for immigration officials, one remains in jail, one was released to the agency Feb. 2 and the third was released to agents Feb. 27, said Keller, a Republican whose county overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the fall.

Sioux County, Iowa, was listed in the report for a Jan. 27 detainer request for a Guatemalan man who committed a traffic offense.

The individual was booked into the jail at 9 p.m. CT and a judge released him at 10:30 a.m. the next day, Sioux City Sheriff Dan Altena said.

"(There was) almost no way we would have gotten that detainer before the next morning," Altena said.

ICE officials issue detainers that ask local authorities to hold an individual for up to 48 hours to give the agency more time to investigate immigration status. Some jurisdictions, including Franklin and Sioux counties, began ignoring the requests in 2014 after the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that local police departments are not required to hold undocumented immigrants for the federal agency.

"I can’t do my job based on what my opinion might be on immigration," said Altena, also a Republican. "I have to do my job based on what the law has decided, and the law has decided (local agencies) will be liable criminally and civilly if (they) hold somebody on a detainer. If someone changes that, that’s fine."

While Sioux County continues to ignore ICE detainer requests for inmates who are otherwise eligible for release, Franklin County, Iowa, changed its policy in January when Larson became the sheriff.

He replaced the department's 10-page policy for dealing with ICE officials with one line. It states: The office will cooperate with any federal law enforcement agency.

"My problem was we were separating out what agencies we will and won't work with, and from an operational standpoint ... (that) became very confusing," Larson said.

In total, 12 Iowa counties are listed in the report for having policies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Larson said the ICE report inaccurately names Franklin County as non-compliant, but he's giving the agency the benefit of the doubt.

"We knew it would take us a period of time before we would migrate off that list," Larson said. "But we have not received anything from (ICE) saying, 'Please certify that you've made this change' ... It would have been nice."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement Thursday that jurisdictions listed in the report had — in the past — expressed unwillingness to fully comply with detainer requests or have not provided ICE with sufficient time to allow for the safe transfer of a detainee.

"ICE seeks cooperation from all its law-enforcement partners to achieve our mutual goal of protecting public safety," the statement read. "If a law enforcement jurisdiction publicly changes its policies to honor ICE detainers, ICE will revise the DDOR (Declined Detainer Outcome Report) report accordingly."

Contributing: Jim Hook, (Chambersburg, Pa.) Public Opinion; Alan Gomez, USA TODAY; The Associated Press. Follow MacKenzie Elmer on Twitter: @mckelmer