Sheriff's office expands federal partnership

TIFFIN — The Seneca County Sheriff's Office is now participating in three programs with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). For the past 25 years, the Seneca County jail has served as an ICE detention facility and receives $90 per detainee per day of incarceration. "The pay rate that I negotiated covers the cost of housing them (ICE detainees), the cost of the food, if we have any transports and the salaries of the corrections officers," Sheriff Fred Stevens explained. Since the jail is an ICE detention facility, Stevens said it made sense to him to participate in two types of ICE's 287(g) program. The program is an illegal immigration reform program authorizing ICE to, according to an ice.gov webpage, "delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency's direction and oversight." Task Force model Seneca County is participating in the task force model of the program, which, according to ICE, "serves as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight." "The task force model is for the deputies on the road," Stevens said. "It is going to be for full-time deputies only with two or more years of experience, including myself, the chief deputy and the captain. That's the requirement that ICE has." The model also requires a background check for each member of the office who participates in the program, as well as 40 hours of training for each participant. The training must be completed within 60 days. "The training and certification gives the deputies on the road, the legal ability to arrest the person with the detainer that's in the NCIC (National Crime Information Center) system," he continued. An example the sheriff provided is if a Seneca County Sheriff's Office road deputy conducts a traffic stop on a vehicle and a person in the vehicle has a detainer, also known as a holder warrant, the deputy can arrest the person, bringing them to the Seneca County jail, which is an ICE detention facility. "Otherwise, we'd have to wait for a federal agent to come from Sandusky, Port Clinton or Cleveland," Stevens shared. "You only have a reasonable amount of time. The clock starts when you have contact with that person. If you find out they have a warrant and the wait for a federal agent is two hours, that's unreasonable." He also said participating in the task force model program gives deputies federal training, which he said will prevent the possibility of "getting sued by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) or some other activist group." Stevens shared that there have been cases in the past in which agencies that don't have federal training are sued due to arresting a person who has a detainer without proper training. "If it were a regular warrant on a citizen, we would be doing the same thing. So there's no additional workload on us at all to be able to do that," Stevens said. After training is completed, Stevens reported deputies will not go looking for unauthorized immigrants, but when deputies encounter unauthorized immigrants on calls, the training is a tool in the deputies' belts for serving the community. Warrant Service Officer model The sheriff's office is also a participant in the Warrant Service Officer model, which "allows ICE to train, certify and authorize state and local law enforcement officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens in their agency's jail." Stevens said this program is geared to personnel who work in the jail and have two years of experience or more. He has included the jail supervisors, sergeants, corporals and senior corrections officers in the training. The training must be completed within 60 days. "If a Task Force member arrests a person out on the road because they have a detainer and the person is brought to our facility, the Warrant Service officers can serve the warrant to them," the sheriff explained. "We are not looking to go out and find illegals or to investigate any anonymous callers. Those things will be passed along to the federal authorities as we have done in the past." The third model of the 287(g) program is the jail enforcement model, which is "designed to identify and process removable aliens with criminal and pending criminal charges." Stevens shared that since the Seneca County jail is already an ICE detention facility, he did not feel the need to participate in this model. The why When asked why he decided to have his office participate in the Task Force and Warrant Service Officer models of the ICE program, the sheriff said this: "Partnering with the federal government for Seneca County has been going on for 25 years. I see this as just another step of partnering with the federal government to assist with the law." Stevens said that his agency already assists with local and state law enforcement when it is needed and now the agency can also assist if surrounding law enforcement agencies encounter someone with a detainer from the federal government. "They can call us and we can go there," he explained. "They don't need to call the federal government and hope that they get there within that reasonable time period." To conclude his reasoning for entering the program, Stevens said it "gives us a layer of protection from liability and being sued for serving ICE detainer warrants. I made this decision not in a vacuum, but with clear eyes and what our oaths of office mean by upholding the law of the land. If you are in our country, state or county illegally, and by that, I mean specifically not going through the proper processes of getting into our country then we have a duty and obligation to assist other law enforcement agencies in their job as well." According to the contracts between the sheriff's office and ICE, those trained in the 287(g) program will have the power to do the following: • Interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien • Arrest without a warrant any alien entering or attempting to enter the United States • Arrest without warrant for felonies which have been committed and which are cognizable under any law of the United States • Serve and execute warrants of arrest for immigration violations • Administer oaths and take and consider evidence • Issue immigration detainers Copies of the memoranda of understanding are attached to the version of this article found online at advertiser-tribune.com. Other Ohio counties involved in the program include Butler, Lake and Portage counties.