A report released today, Interlocking Systems: How Pennsylvania Counties and Local Police Are Assisting ICE to Deport Immigrants, reveals the extent of collaboration between local governments and ICE in the era of the Trump administration. Many local governments in Pennsylvania have made the choice to actively engage and support federal immigration enforcement. In contrast, other local governments across the country have opted not to use their local resources to assist ICE.
The report was prepared for Juntos by Amy Chin-Arroyo (‘20), Solena Laigle (‘20), and Prof. Jennifer Lee with the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic.
Pennsylvania counties, for example, are consistently collaborating with ICE pursuant to written policies or informal practices. County jails and probation departments regularly share information about immigrants and help ICE to locate and arrest immigrants. Local police collaboration with ICE appears to be less systematic and mostly ad hoc, with individual officers choosing to become involved in federal immigration enforcement.
Further, the report provides information about the eight federal contracts in Pennsylvania to detain immigrants in county jails for civil immigration violations. It details the significant human costs of jailing such immigrants while counties are profiting off the growing numbers of immigrants in civil detention.
Most recently, some cities and towns have canceled their lucrative federal contracts to detain immigrants in county jails or prisons. Local governments are reconsidering how to best use their resources to serve their local communities rather than the federal ICE enforcement machinery.
Some of the key findings from the report are outlined below:
- County jails systematically share information with ICE on a weekly, if not daily basis.
- County probation officers work with ICE to entice immigrants to come in for appointments so they may be arrested by ICE.
- Pennsylvania counties receive millions of dollars for jailing ICE detainees, who are being held for civil immigration violations.
- In 2017 and 2018, the ICE detainee population in Pennsylvania increased.
- Inspection reports of these county jails have revealed that ICE detainees lack access to medical care.
- ICE has actively courted police departments in Pennsylvania to engage in federal immigration enforcement.
- The lack of formal written policies in police departments about interactions with ICE has created an opening for individual police officers to act based on their own personal inclinations.
All documents obtained from counties and police departments through the Right to Know Law are available here.