For local sheriffs who have long talked tough on immigration, their time has come, the Wall Street Journal reports. If President-elect Trump ramps up deportations as promised, he will have a strong ally in Chuck Jenkins, the longtime Republican sheriff of Maryland’s Frederick County. “I’m willing to support the president 100%,” said Jenkins. That prospect is spreading fear in immigrant circles and drawing mixed views from residents in this growing county of nearly 300,000 residents, which backed Democrats in the last two presidential elections. Jenkins, once dubbed among the nation’s 10 toughest immigration sheriffs by Fox News, sees Trump’s imminent return to the White House as a mandate for a more assertive approach.
While the incoming Trump administration has spoken about increasing the ranks of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and using the military to aid deportations, it is clear that the federal government needs help from local law enforcement in cities and states far from the border to detain and remove people en masse. Trump’s transition team is pursuing new spaces they can repurpose into short-term detention centers near large cities where most immigrants illegally live. It is weighing a broad mix of changes to give sheriffs more power, with rewards for jurisdictions that cooperate, and financial retribution against those in blue states and cities that hold out. To leverage legions of deputies, the Trump team is aiming for a “historic” expansion of a federal program that gives sheriffs and other agencies certain ICE powers. Under that program, known as 287(g) after the law that created it, the team aims to revive a dormant and controversial “task force model,” which until 2012 allowed officers from participating local agencies, during routine duties, to question and arrest suspected noncitizens in the community on immigration violations. Tom Homan, the incoming border czar and a longtime ICE official, favors the model because it leads to more frequent and visible arrests, which he believes could act as a deterrent to would-be migrants thinking of coming to the U.S.
Kommentare