The sheriff’s offices in Itasca and Cass counties are the first two Minnesota law enforcement agencies to sign on as force multipliers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Donald Trump’s renewed push for immigration enforcement.
Under federal law, ICE may delegate authority to state and local officers to interrogate people about their immigration status during routine police work. In an executive order signed on his first day back in office, Trump required ICE to authorize local agencies to perform these duties, reopening the abandoned 287(g) program.
Itasca County Sheriff Joe Dasovich and Cass County Sheriff Bryan Welk both agreed to participate in the task force model, one of three models of cooperation in which local authorities can assist in enforcing civil immigration laws. ICE trains and deputizes selected officers within participating agencies.
Historically, local agency participation in enforcing civil immigration laws led to concerns of racial profiling and exposed counties and states to legal liability over constitutional rights violations. The program was shuttered in 2012 by the Obama administration and not revived by Trump during his first term in office. But the president’s focus on mass deportations has led to the renewed push, along with involving federal agencies including the IRS and the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to Stateline.
Local public safety
In interviews with KAXE, Dasovich and Welk both said they believe joining the task force model will increase safety in the communities they serve. Itasca County agreed to participate in the program on Feb. 27, while Cass County agreed on Feb. 28, according to ICE’s list of participating agencies, which is updated daily.
Dasovich pointed to a recent “grandparent scam” in the region, where at least three victims handed over about $50,000 to an in-person scammer posing as a bail bondsman under the belief a grandchild needed money for bail.
Two men were arrested, and the one under suspicion of aiding and abetting felony theft by swindle — 24-year-old Sebastian Munoz-Huertas of Freeport, Illinois — allegedly told authorities he was from Colombia and expressed concerns about being deported, according to the criminal complaint. The Duluth News Tribune reported Munoz-Huertas was subject to a federal hold after his arrest.
“We're limited on how much we can participate without a working agreement, and my No. 1 priority is to keep our community safe,” Dasovich said by phone March 7. “So I made the choice to become a [task force model] agency because of that. Otherwise, we do not have the authority to detain some individuals who have ICE detainers.”
Welk also noted the scam arrests, adding similar scams have occurred in Cass County. He said the sheriff’s office wants to be good partners with all federal law enforcement agencies.
"I want our officers to be able to be fully compliant and not get caught up in any of the pitfalls,” Welk said in a Monday, March 10, interview.
Both sheriffs acknowledged that despite this recent example, encountering undocumented immigrants in their counties through the course of police work is rare. Dasovich said he’s personally dealt with just three people wanted by federal immigration authorities in his two-decade career. Welk said Cass County has “historically maybe one or two aliens that come in.”
No roundups or raids
The memorandum of agreement for the task force model states local law enforcement personnel can “interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or remain in the United States ... and to process for immigration violations those individuals who have been arrested for State or Federal criminal offenses,” among other authorizations for actions on behalf of ICE.
Agreeing to participate includes a requirement for mandatory training of officers by ICE on the scope of immigration officer authority and discussions of the terms and limitations of the agreement.
The sheriffs emphasized their agencies would not proactively look for undocumented people, limiting their involvement with ICE to people otherwise under investigation for committing crimes.
“I wanna be clear. This isn’t just to go round up any illegal alien,” Dasovich said. “This is to protect our county from a specific criminal element.”
“We would not be participating in raids or things like that,” Welk said.
While local law enforcement has the authority to make arrests, they cannot detain someone unless they’ve met certain criteria.
“That criteria includes those who are deemed a public safety threat, a national security threat, those who have an outstanding warrant for their arrest or those who were deported but reentered the country illegally,” reports the Miami Herald.
Concerns of profiling, legal exposure
The complexity of immigration law, a lack of in-depth training and infrequent enforcement are some of the factors that make the program problematic, according to Ben Casper, staff attorney with American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota. Casper has practiced immigration law for nearly three decades and has taught at the University of Minnesota Law School and the St. Thomas University School of Law.
“The training just doesn’t provide local law enforcement participants the level of knowledge and expertise to make reliable judgements about the status of people they’re encountering,” Casper said in a Wednesday phone interview.
“And that inevitably leads to mistaken and false arrests, and it inevitably places law enforcement agents in their communities in the position of making judgements that do turn on race and national origin in ways that create very high risks of error or over time, by practice, fall into a pattern of profiling.”
Casper further noted local participation in the program can have a chilling effect on undocumented people or their family members — even if they are U.S. citizens — from seeking help when they’re victims of crimes. He said these agreements are often decided unilaterally without public input and may lead to substantial financial or moral costs.
“Not only is it a question of policy for a whole county as to the liability financially and quality of public safety and law enforcement, there’s a substantial moral question about whether you want your community law enforcement to be carrying out what is, without question, a planned imminent mass deportation campaign that is equally without question going to be at its core a program of mass family separation,” Casper said.
ICE training for local agencies has not yet taken place. Welk said he intends for all deputies in his office to be trained, while Dasovich said he’d likely select one person per crew. Neither anticipate additional costs to their departments by participating.
When asked about profiling risks, Welk said there are policies in place to prevent that.
“That’s not what we’re looking for, not our main job,” Welk said. “ ... This is something that, if it comes up, that we’re able to deal with it. We don’t get to pick and choose what laws we get to enforce.”
Dasovich said people who are undocumented might already be less likely to call 911, no matter the task force model.
“Our job is to keep everyone safe, No. 1,” Dasovich said. “ ... Just because they’re here undocumented, doesn’t mean they can’t be a victim of a crime as well, and we would deal with the situation at hand.”
Lawmakers consider adding requirements
Beyond the 287(g) program, Minnesota lawmakers are also currently considering bills related to stepping up immigration enforcement. HF16 would require county attorneys to report undocumented people to ICE if they’ve been arrested for a violent crime — but not yet convicted. HF772 would require county jails or other public institutions to investigate and report the immigration status of not only those convicted of felonies, but also those who’ve been committed for mental illness.
In a Wednesday letter, both the Association of Minnesota Counties and the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association opposed the bills, citing increased liability risks, legal exposure due to extended detention, due process violations and discrimination claims.
