“When we identify people, who are breaking the law, we arrest them and hold them accountable, and if my federal partners need assistance in doing that, and I can do it lawfully, I want to do that,” said Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson.
According to the Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287g Immigration and Nationality Act, the 287g program allows a “state or local law enforcement entity to enter into a partnership with ICE, under a joint Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), in order to received delegated authority for immigration enforcement within their jurisdictions.”
Waukesha County is one of 78 law enforcement agencies in the country that, in partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), enforces the 287g program. Severson is the only sheriff in the six state ICE region that is 287g.
Under 287g, local law enforcement, like Severson, can honor ICE detainers, which are put on unauthorized immigrants who have been arrested and for whom ICE has reason to believe that they may be removable from the United States.
Waukesha County gets anywhere from six to a dozen detainers issued in an entire year, according to Severson.
For Severson, the reason to take part in the 287g program is twofold; protecting his department from frivolous litigation, while also protecting the public.
Groups like the ACLU and Voces De La Frontera, began questioning the constitutionality of ICE detainers around five to six years ago, according to Severson. The groups began to file lawsuits against sheriffs who honored ICE detainers.
Part of why Waukesha County is a part of 287g is because of the threat of this litigation.
“The 287g program, for me, is a mechanism that allows me to comply with detainers without worrying about which side of the law this federal district might rule, if and when they rule,” said Severson.
“It prevents me, I think, from facing unnecessary litigation because I think we would win that, and I think people who would look at this would recognize that you can’t say I don’t have the jurisdiction to enforce ICE detainers when the very people who are doing it are federal agents.”
Severson applied to the 287g in the spring of 2017 and was accepted. The program has been up and running in Waukesha for a little over two months. Severson has received a lot of support from his constituents regarding the program.
After being accepted, Severson had to have his facilities inspected, computer equipment installed, and sent two of his correctional officers to training.
His officers went to a month-long training, and once they completed the training, according to Severson, the officers now have sworn ICE credentials.
“They have the same authority that a federal immigrations and customs enforcement agent has,” said Severson.
“They are federal agents.”
According to Severson, there are three different models of the 287g program. The first model is a task force model but is no longer instituted.
“It is that model that people like [Voces De La Frontera] and the ACLU and a lot of other folks that want to attack ICE, that’s the model that they criticize,” said Severson.
The third model is the jail model, which is what Waukesha County is a part of. The second model is a combination of the first and the third.
Through the jail model, Severson and his department learn about someone’s immigration status typically through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), when the person gets booked into the jail.
Waukesha County’s Jail has an average of 430 inmates every day, not including the Huber Facility inmates.
Although, according to Severson, they may discover someone’s immigration status by the person disclosing it prior to the booking process, although he notes that is not common.
“On any given day, I may have only one or two people in custody that have a detainer request,” said Severson.
“Not a large number of people.”
Severson notes that he has never ignored an ICE detainer, although there was an instance when an inmate was released prior to ICE coming to pick them up.
The release came in response to a Chicago district court case that affected southeastern Wisconsin around two and a half years ago, regarding whether or not an administrative warrant needed to be attached to a detainer.
ICE decided to attach warrants to detainers nationwide and went through the active detainers attaching warrants. According to Severson, they missed some, and one was the inmate that Severson released.
“Immigration law is really, really complicated,” said Severson.
ICE prioritizes cases differently, says Severson, and the difference between being in the country illegally and it being a civil or criminal case is something he understands well.
“You don’t get deported because you committed a crime. You get deported because you don’t belong here.”
However, criminals who commit serious offenses, like murder, often serve their sentence before being released into ICE custody, according to Severson.
As sheriff, Severson takes time to understand and immerse himself in everything he’s doing, and during that has also learned a lot about people too.
“I’ve learned a valuable lesson being sheriff. It’s that people advocate for their positions by not completing the sentence,” said Severson.
A sentence that is not always completed, in Severson’s opinion, is that ICE does a lot more than just deportations. ICE helps with naturalizations and assisting people in becoming legal citizens.
“That’s a story that never gets told.”
Severson firmly believes that the fears that communities are experiencing because of ICE are not his doing.
“All of the naysayers who say, oh the world is going to come to an end and families are going to get separated, and people are going to get arrested for running stop sings. And we’re going to do sweeps of communities and we’re going to go to every Mexican restaurant in the county and start arresting everybody in the kitchen,” said Severson.
“None of that’s true. It’s all lies. It’s not happening, it won’t happen. They can’t advance the narrative that 287g is bad by telling the truth.”