Many localities in New York may no longer honor the federal government’s request to hold foreign-born detainees for 48 hours so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can investigate their immigration status, according to a New York Times report.
The New York State Sheriffs’ Association issued a recommendation that “its members refuse requests by” ICE, and “at least nine sheriffs” have already “vowed to follow the association’s guidance.”
The Times notes that the New York Civil Liberties Union has been pushing for the changes following “a series of federal court rulings this year that raised questions about the constitutionality of the holds, which are known as detainers” and allow ICE to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
ICE often issues “detainers to local and state law enforcement agencies, asking them to hold immigrant detainees for up to 48 hours after they were scheduled for release from jail,” and “many of those detainees are then transferred into federal custody and end up in deportation proceedings.” ICE maintains that the detainers are “critical” for the agency “to be able to identify and ultimately remove criminal aliens who are currently in federal, state or local custody” with the “cooperation of our state and local law enforcement partners in this effort.”
However, after a federal judge in Oregon recently ruled that detainers were unconstitutional, many localities in states like California and Colorado have increasingly refused to honor ICE detainers. The Times notes that 134 jurisdictions across the country have said they would no longer honor the detainers.
“We’re pleased that some of the counties that have large immigrant populations have recognized that they can’t legally hold people based on an ICE detainer,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Times.
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