The Berrien County Sheriff’s Department is clarifying its role helping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest undocumented migrants in the area.
Social media lit up this week with news the department has signed a 287g Agreement with ICE. Some have wondered if this means sheriff’s deputies will now be making arrests and raiding homes on behalf of the federal agency. However, Berrien County Sheriff Chuck Heit told the Berrien County Board of Commissioners Thursday that’s not what’s happening.
Heit said the new agreement is just the sheriff’s department agreeing to do something for ICE that it’s done for other sheriff’s offices for many years. It strictly applies to the jail.
“If there is a hold on someone who’s in our jail, we honor the hold like we would for an out-of-county, an out-of-state, or anything else,” Heit said. “We will honor those holds. This is an agreement that formalized it. The only thing that really changed is it gives us the opportunity to assist in serving the warrant so then they’ll use their transport company or whatever, ICE has 48 hours from the time they’re notified that any case is done to come pick them up.”
In other words, if ICE issues a warrant for someone in the jail, the sheriff’s department will hold them there for 48 hours so ICE can have them picked up. The only new part of this is that the sheriff’s department can now serve an ICE warrant to an inmate so ICE can send for them without having to send an agent.
Heit said his office has met with the Berrien County Prosecutor, clergy, and farmers around the area to discuss its work with ICE, and it’s decided not to form a task force to conduct immigration-related operations outside of the jail. There will be no searches of schools, homes, or other locations.
Heit told us his office does not have the authority to enforce national immigration law. He said that’s the job of the feds.
