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ICE Releases "Declined Detainer" Report

DHS today, following Donald Trump's Executive Order on public safety in January, released an ICE report with a week's worth of numbers for detainers requested and their outcome. The report is called "a Declined Detainer Outcome Report."

The Declined Detainer Outcome Report is a weekly report that shows those jurisdictions with the highest volume of declined detainers, and includes a list of sample crimes associated with those released individuals. This report is mandated by the president’s executive order “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States.”

The full report, covering 1/28 to 2/3/17 is here.

The report is merely an attempt to create a shaming list. Non-compliance with an ICE detainer request is nothing to be ashamed of. ICE detainer requests are just that -- requests -- they are not orders, and compliance is voluntary. [More...]

No federal appeals court has ever described an ICE detainer as anything but a request. The Third Circuit said in 2014 (Galarza v. Szalczyk), after summarizing the position of the various circuits:

Reading § 287.7 [the Detainer provision]to mean that a federal detainer filed with a state or local law enforcement agency was a command to detain an individual on behalf of the federal government would violate the anti-commandeering doctrine of the Tenth Amendment.

The ACLU, which represented Galarza has more here.

Under 8 C.F.R. § 287.7, a detainer is a tool used by ICE to hold individuals who are taken into state custody. It is a written request that the state law enforcement officers detain an individual for no more than 48 hours after his or her release on state charges so that ICE can investigate that person's immigration status. In 2016, the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois held that nearly all ICE detainers issued by the Chicago Field Office were invalid.

If ICE wants custody of someone in a local jail, it should get an arrest warrant.

Here's a map of the local jurisdictions refusing to grant ICE detainer requests in the wake of the multiple federal court rulings. Here is a Feburary, 2017 legal update on court rulings holding ICE detainer requests and merely requests (and in some cases holding local jurisdictions financially accountable for violating constitutional rights when then comply.)

Just last month, a Rhode Island federal court refused to grant the immunity to an ICE agent and to the ICE Field Office Director for Boston in a case where a U.S. citizen was improperly detained purusant to an invalid ICE detainer. (Morales v. Chadbourne.)

Ada Morales was born in Guatemala, and became a naturalized United States citizen on September 11, 1995 under her maiden name, Ada Amavilia Cabrera. She has a social security number and a United States passport. Despite this, Ms. Morales was held at the state prison on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") detainer that was issued solely based on her Hispanic last name and her Guatemalan birthplace. This twenty-four hour illegal detention revealed dysfunction of a constitutional proportion at both the state and federal levels and a unilateral refusal to take responsibility for the fact that a United States citizen lost her liberty due to a baseless immigration detainer through no fault of her own. There is plenty of blame to go around amongst the Defendants in this case.

Some of the detainer requests in today's report were issued in 2014 - 2016. I doubt many of the subjects were still in custody this month when the detainer requests were denied.

Here's a fact sheet on so called "sanctuary cities." Nearly 300 law professors have joined a letter saying Trump's executive order is unconstitutional.

The only shame here, as usual, is on Donald Trump, for issuing the order.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Destroying tourism (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Militarytracy on Mon Mar 20, 2017 at 07:03:58 PM EST
    Way to go Trump!

    no shame, so who cares? (1.00 / 1) (#5)
    by thomas rogan on Tue Mar 21, 2017 at 09:24:45 PM EST
    If these lists are not binding and not shaming, then the cities involved should actually welcome the publicity that they refused a request for a detainer.
    No need to condemn Trump for making the lists which will presumably backfire.  I'm sure the recidivism rate among those in custody who have ICE detainers is zero, and probably they were all innocent of the crimes for which they were in custody in the first place.  

    As we like to say in Philadelphia, we are not (none / 0) (#2)
    by Peter G on Mon Mar 20, 2017 at 08:33:15 PM EST
    a "sanctuary city," we are a "Fourth Amendment city." ICE "detainers" are requests to hold a person in custody without legal cause, merely on suspicion. They are unconstitutional. As the Third Circuit federal appeals court properly ruled (way to go, ACLU of PA!), the fact that a federal agency asks a local sheriff to act unconstitutionally does not give that sheriff immunity from suit for complying, when the request has no legal support. A city or county risks civil rights liability for honoring these bogus "detainers."

    seattle is a officially (none / 0) (#3)
    by linea on Mon Mar 20, 2017 at 10:03:29 PM EST
    a "welcoming city" but it's considered a sanctuary city by the republicans and subject to the loss of federal funds. i've mentioned this before; the resolution simply allows people to interact with police (as victims and witnesses) and other government agencies without reguard to citizenship status. it's good policing and good policy. and despite what the republicans assert it does not, in any way, shield dangerous foreign criminals convicted of felonies from deportation.

    Parent
    I am hopeful that the threatened loss (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by Peter G on Mon Mar 20, 2017 at 10:14:34 PM EST
    of federal funds -- which has not passed into law -- would be held unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment anti-commandeering rationale accepted by the Third Circuit in Galarza, as described by J in this post.

    Parent