The Marshall County Sheriff's Office will soon finalize an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to allow specially trained officers to identify illegal aliens and place them on detainers.
Sheriff Phil Sims said his office has been working with ICE to carry out President Donald Trump's immigration agenda, but this agreement, under the jail enforcement model of the 287(g) program, will help expedite the process.
"It's a four-week training, and when they get through with that, they'll have the same authority as an ICE officer to issue detainers," Sims said.
The 287(g) program has three models:
- The jail enforcement model allows officers to identify and process removable aliens currently in your jail or detention facility who have pending or active criminal charges while in custody.
- The task force model, which allows officers to enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties, such as identifying an alien at a DUI checkpoint and sharing information directly with ICE.
- The warrant service officer program, which trains and authorizes officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens currently in custody.
Currently, in Marshall County, when someone is arrested for a crime and believed to be a non-citizen, the sheriff's office must contact ICE to confirm the suspect's status, which can take 24 hours or longer.
Under the 287(g) program jail enforcement model, trained deputies or corrections officers will be able to interrogate suspects about their citizenship and verify their status using ICE's database.
"This will allow us to do everything in-house so there won't be a delay in getting a detainer issued on this individual," Sims said. "That way, if they try to bond out within four or five hours of being here, we can hold them here without having to call ICE."
He said after a suspect's illegal status is confirmed, the removal process is started "instantly," which will help free up space in the jail. As of last Thursday, the jail had 22 inmates on ICE detainers. Once a suspect is turned over to ICE, they are taken to a facility in Etowah County for processing, Sims said.
"I just want the public to know that here in Marshall County, we are going to assist ICE and do what we can for our part locally to enforce immigration laws the right way," he said.
Marshall County will be the latest agency to join the program, which already has 15 participants, including the Level Plains Police Department and the sheriff's departments in Cherokee County, Colbert County, Crenshaw County, Elmore County, Etowah County, Franklin County, Henry County, Houston County, Lauderdale County Lawerence County, Limstone County, Marion County, Mobile County and Pike County.
Sims said that four Marshall County corrections officers will soon begin the 287(g) training, and he hopes to one day have sufficient manpower to expand the program to include warrant service. He already has one officer trained under the task force model.
"The infrastructure for the 287(g) program, for a long time under Biden, went away, was put on hold. Nobody participated in it because the federal government didn't want us to," Sims said. "Well, now they do. So they're trying to get all these people back on board. It's just taking time to do that."
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