Melinda Rizzo contributed reporting to this article.
Roughly 2,000 miles away from the Mexico border, Bucks County will soon officially become the next battlefield in the Trump administration’s war on undocumented immigrants.
Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran has applied for his office to participate in ICE’s 287(g) “task force model” partnership, a program described as a “force multiplier” as it trains and then deputizes local law enforcement officers to act as de facto ICE agents as they perform their day-to-day duties.
“The final paperwork is in Washington. I got off the phone with ICE an hour ago,” Harran told the Beacon Tuesday morning. “It’s completed on my end and we’re waiting on the final signature.”
The approval is imminent.
The Miami Herald published an explainer of ICE’s “task force model” after 100 Florida law enforcement agencies joined the program. It notes it “allows officers to challenge people on the street about their immigration status — and possibly arrest them … [and] state and local officers are trained and deputized by ICE so they can question, detain and arrest individuals they suspect of violating civil immigration laws while officers are out policing the communities they are sworn to protect.”
The program was suspended by the Obama administration after a 2011 Department of Justice investigation concluded that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio “engaged in a pattern and practice of constitutional violations” and “racial profiling” while participating in this 287(g) program.
“If this program doesn’t work and it seems to be going down the wrong road I will rip up the paperwork – I will ditch it as fast as I took it,” Harran said.
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Harran explained that this program is solely under the purview of his office and that county commissioners are not involved in whether or how this program is run. Bucks would join Pennsylvania’s Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, which is already participating, along with Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office and (Elizabethtown’s) Northwest Regional Police Department, who are also awaiting approval. Bradford County Sheriff’s Office participates in the Warrant Service Officer program.
Harran also said that ICE officials already have access to the Bucks County prison system. “If someone is in our prison for a crime and here illegally, ICE can come and pick them up.”
Bucks County resources will not be responsible for deporting people. “I do not have the authority – nor would I do that,” Harran said. Although the reason for rounding up and detaining these immigrants is so that ICE can deport them.
Harran emphasized that he is only concerned with criminals.
“I’m only interested in those illegally here and committing crime. I’m not interested in people that own pizza shops or those who work for ‘ABC company,’” he said.
There are three levels of local law enforcement available under the 287 (g) partnerships. Harran has applied for the “task force model” level, the most aggressive of the three which allows certified local law enforcement to execute roundups and raids.
READ: ICE Lets Local Officials Stop Immigrants on the Streets as Task Force Program Is Back
According to the ICE website, the three partnership levels include:
- The Jail Enforcement Model is designed to identify and process removable aliens — with criminal or pending criminal charges — who are arrested by state or local law enforcement agencies.
- The Task Force Model serves as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.
- The Warrant Service Officer program allows ICE to train, certify and authorize state and local law enforcement officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens in their agency’s jail.
There are about 77 deputies in the Bucks County Sheriff’s office and Harran said about 12 would be trained initially to participate. So far the program is being received enthusiastically by his deputies, as 30 have already made formal requests for program training.
Heidi Roux, executive director of Immigrant Rights Action, said it’s a bad idea. The first thing it will do is damage the trust her organization, and the local immigrants it helps, currently has with local law enforcement.
“Our community’s collaboration with law enforcement is necessary to ensure the public safety of all. Evidence shows 287(g) creates an environment of distrust and will only lead to the underreporting of crimes here in Bucks County,” said Roux. “Our local law enforcement should not be asked to enforce federal immigration policy on top of their already increasing police duties.”
READ: Pennsylvania Immigrant Rights Advocates Urge Passage of the American Dream and Promise Act
Immigrant Rights Action is an immigrant-led non-profit that offers legal services and basic support to migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Bucks County.
“We have seen time and time again that when local law enforcement enters agreements like this with ICE, community trust is obliterated and public safety erodes,” said Roux. “When residents feel that their immigration status may put them at risk of discrimination or deportation, they are less likely to cooperate with police, report crimes, or seek help when victims of crime.”
Roux added that she has requested a meeting with Sheriff Harran to discuss her concerns.
ICE agents have made headlines for excessive force, like when they smashed in a car window to detain an asylum seeker (with no criminal record) in Massachusetts, and for sweeping up innocent immigrants whose only crime was being here illegally. The Trump administration has said that all undocumented immigrants are “criminals.” They even sent one of these so-called criminals (guilty of only being here illegally) – Kilmar Ábrego García – to El Salvador to be held in what has been described as the “world’s worst prison”. The Department of Homeland Security has also opened up schools, churches, and hospitals to ICE raids – “sensitive areas” previously off limits.
Danny Ceisler, a Democrat looking to unseat Harran in November, said this program is a waste of money and resources.
“The Sheriff’s Office has many important responsibilities – immigration enforcement is absolutely not one of them,” said Ceisler. “There is a well-funded federal agency for that. Our Sheriff really needs to keep his eye on the ball here in Bucks.”
He added, “Bucks County tax dollars should be used to protect Bucks County residents — not to do ICE’s job for them.”
This is not the first time Harran tried to bring this program to Bucks County. Back in 2018 while he was Bensalem’s Public Safety Officer Harran tried to bring it there, but he said it did not pan out because it was something no one was familiar with. “It wasn’t tried then.” However, what he didn’t mention was that there was widespread community outrage, which played a significant part in the abandonment of the the program.
As for now, “I’m open to expansion or if it doesn’t work I’m open to do away with it,” Harran said.
Ceisler says it’s just unnecessary.
“If we have someone in our custody who has been convicted of a violent crime and is in the country illegally, we should absolutely notify ICE,” said Ceisler. “You don’t need 287(g) to do that.”
