Idaho Gov. Brad Little wants state police to help with ICE deportations
Idaho State Police is now authorized to transport undocumented people who are convicted of certain crimes into federal custody, according to a Thursday news release from Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s office.
In U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, these people will be “processed for deportation,” according to the release.
The new agreement with ICE has state police join a federal initiative known as the 287(g) program, which under the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the federal agency to delegate some of its functions to local law enforcement officials.
Idaho is set to partner with ICE under the federal agency’s “jail enforcement model,” which is a method that allows local law enforcement officials to help ICE identify and process undocumented people who have been arrested on separate criminal charges and are being held in state or local detention facilities. The state plans to target only those who were convicted of serious crimes and completed their sentences, according to the Governor’s Office.
Under the agreement, Idaho State Police will be authorized to spent up to $300,000 over the next year to carry out up to 100 transports, each including multiple people, to an ICE detention facility in Jefferson County.
Idaho plan sets out to target serious crimes
The agreement aligns with President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. It also follows an executive order Little issued in February that instructed state police and other agencies to consider agreements with ICE that would allow local law enforcement to contribute to federal immigration enforcement and deportation efforts. And it “follows the spirit of” a bill Little signed in March that would have created state-level versions of federal immigration crimes, allowing local law enforcement officers to wade into an area reserved for the federal government.
A judge in April temporarily blocked part of the new law, blocking enforcement of the new state-level crimes of “illegal entry” and “illegal reentry,” the Idaho Statesman reported.
The agreement targets “dangerous” people who have committed crimes such as domestic violence, robbery or driving under the influence, according to the Governor’s Office. The office did not include a full list of crimes for which people might be targeted under the agreement.
U.S. immigration policy for decades has already given priority to the deportation of immigrants who commit crimes, even those in the country legally, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Some counties in Idaho have also already stated their intent to assist ICE through the federal program.
ICE deportation program sparked controversy
Previous law enforcement agencies that joined 287(g) program have sparked controversy for the ways they have executed such deportation efforts. In 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee found that most of one county’s deportations through this program were triggered by “minor, often traffic-related” offenses. That county’s program also encouraged racial profiling among police on patrol, the ACLU found.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, celebrated the partnership in Thursday’s release. The agreement would “keep offenders out of communities” by allowing local law enforcement officials to hand them over directly to ICE in a “safe setting,” rather than releasing them into the community and requiring federal officials to conduct a separate arrest for an immigration violation.
Trump has ramped up efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. His administration has called on FBI employees to assist with immigration duties and invoked a little-used law from 1798, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport people more quickly. In recent weeks, agents have arrested people at courthouses just after judges dropped their immigration cases and deportation proceedings in order to deport them faster.
The administration’s new approach to deportations have led to a sense of fear among Idaho’s immigrant community and among U.S. citizens concerned about racial profiling.
Local immigrants and Idaho Latinos will “rightly view this partnership as a betrayal,” said Estefanía Mondragón, executive director of PODER of Idaho, a local group dedicated to immigrant and Latino communities.
“The role of state police should be to serve and protect the public — not to act as immigration agents for a broken federal deportation system,” she said. “It reinforces fear and distrust in law enforcement, discouraging people from reporting crimes or cooperating with investigations, and undermining the very public safety the state claims to be protecting.”
Leo Morales, the executive director of the ACLU of Idaho, echoed these concerns.
“ICE and local law enforcement partnerships deteriorate trust, harm families and can lead to constitutional violations,” Morales said in a Thursday statement. “This new partnership will intimidate and cause real trauma to our immigrant community.”