Washington Times – by Andrea Noble
The country’s sheriffs are nearing an agreement with the federal Department of Homeland Security that would let them act as contractors to hold illegal immigrants in jail for pickup, hoping they have found a way to handle the increasingly tricky issue of immigration detention requests.
Rather than holding immigrants on their own authority, the sheriffs say, they would be acting on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which would pay to have detainees kept until federal officers can get them.
The proposal, still being hashed out by ICE and the National Sheriffs’ Association, could allow interested sheriffs to avoid legal problems while still holding immigrants sought by ICE for up to 48 hours — the time frame ICE asks when it issues a detainer request to local authorities.
“We are an up-to-48-hour hotel,” said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who conceived of the plan. “We are a contracted housing facility that is merely holding someone for them, who they have issued a warrant for, and who they have booked into our jail.”
Detainers have become controversial in recent years, with a number of major law enforcement agencies across the country refusing to honor the requests, saying they don’t want to involve themselves in federal immigration enforcement.
Read the Rest: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/30/sheriffs-near-illegal-immigrant-detainer-agreement/