WICOMICO COUNTY, Md. -- Sheriff Mike Lewis said his office has contacted United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) about a potential partnership. However, Lewis said his office has no plans to help with any enforcement efforts.
If both sides can strike a deal, the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office would become the first law enforcement agency on the Eastern Shore to participate in the 287(g) program.
"What I would like to do in the future is explore the idea with ICE to assist them, once someone is arrested on local charges and they're transported to the local jail," said Lewis.
The 287(g) program allows local agencies to work hand-in-hand with ICE, and those efforts, typically, are carried out in one or all of the following ways.
287(g) Models:
- The Jail Enforcement Model:
- Allows officers to identify and process illegal immigrants who are being held in a county detention center or jail.
- Any illegal immigrants must also have pending or active criminal charges while in a county's custody.
- The Task Force Model:
- Allows officers to enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties.
- That can include identifying an illegal immigrant at a DUI checkpoint and sharing that information directly with ICE.
- An ICE supervisor would determine the next steps.
- Local police officers may also exercise limited immigration authority as active participants on ICE-led task forces.
- Allows officers to enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties.
- The Warrant Service Officer Program:
- ICE trains, certifies and authorizes local officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on illegal immigrants that are in a county's custody.
Lewis said his office is eyeing the jail enforcement model.
"These sheriff deputies would assist ICE at the local jail, once someone is arrested on other charges," said Lewis. "We won't be conducting any enforcement operations in the county at all."
Any agreement would require a Memorandum of Agreement(MOA) between the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office, the Wicomico County Jail and, likely, either the Wicomico County Council or Wicomico County Executive.
County Executive Julie Giordano offered her support and told WBOC she would follow Lewis' lead on this one.
Wicomico County Council President John Cannon also said he would be on board and, like Giordano, said he would trust Lewis as Wicomico County's leading law enforcement officer.
Reverend Roosevelt Toussaint, however, is worried this could spell trouble for the county's Haitian population, even those who are here legally.
"It may start as something genuine, but the way that ICE is going out, ICE are not going to change their policy, I don't believe so," said Toussaint. "They just want to get the sheriff involved to help them to continue whatever they had started."
Toussaint, the Executive Director of the Haitian Development Center of Delmarva, said he views this as a scare tactic.
"This is really a way to make people fear, to make people, all the time worry about them being deported," said Toussaint.
Lewis said he has filed paperwork with ICE and spoken with the agency over the phone and via email, but any deal is weeks, possibly even months away from being completed.