Eight people addressed the Polk County Commissioners Court during the public comments section of Tuesday’s meeting regarding a resolution authorizing the county’s participation in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 287(g) Warrant Service Officer (WSO) Model Program. Seven expressed their opposition to the resolution and desire for the county to give it further consideration. One was in favor of it, inquiring why it had taken so long. Each speaker was given three minutes and was cut off when their allotted time was up.
The Court approved the resolution, as well as authorization for the county judge to execute all necessary agreements and related documents.
According to information provided by the county judge’s office, the 287(g) WSO program is a voluntary agreement allowing trained jail staff to serve ICE administrative warrants only for people already in jail. It does not allow deputies to stop people in the community. The deputies will not ask people about their immigration status and will not be turned into ICE agents. Though the county’s participation is voluntary and may be terminated, the program was considered to provide clear procedures for custody coordination when ICE has already issued a warrant and to access potential federal funding.
“My concerns around this are due process and cruel and unusual punishment. As you’ve seen across the nation, ICE facilities are not giving people medication. People are being abused in ICE facilities. The lights are on all the time which is a form of torture. It’s very concerning to me no matter if someone is convicted of a crime or not that they’re going to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment which is against our constitution,” Jennifer Knapp said. “You don’t have to decide on this until December so what’s the hurry, Let’s see if ICE can get things under control or if there can be some accountability for them for when they take someone.”
Ann Turney agreed. “I stand to object to the relationship, the agreement with ICE. People are afraid, people are afraid specifically of ICE. I have these cards that I ordered from immigration legal counsel and we’ve been distributing them. It tells you what your rights are, Recently, I’ve started having people say why bother? ICE doesn’t follow the law. That’s a concern. Polk County depends on its immigrant neighbors. We depend on going to our favorite restaurants and seeing a smiling face that we usually see. We depend on going to a tire shop and seeing somebody that we know is reliable. I think Polk County needs to take a real close look at this,” Turney said.
According to Joy Bergfalk, “Statistics have shown that undocumented immigrants have a lower criminal report than natural born citizens. Our president ran on the basis of getting rid of the worst of the worst. I’m not sure there’s really anyone here who disagrees with that. I can’t imagine that any of us disagrees with having due process and I appreciated some of these points. I am here to speak out. I also believe that there should not be violence on any side of any issue.”
“When ICE and customs and border patrol come into a community, they come in in huge numbers, usually three four five 10 times the number of local law enforcement. They come in in military gear. The come in with guns. They come in with tear gas, with pepper bombs. And they come in with an attitude. Their attitude is any person who is a person of color or who speaks with an accent is fair game for them to pick up,” Richard Burr said.
“In the course of doing what ICE and customs and border patrol have been doing, they do it without warrants, they break into people’s houses and snatch people. They take parents away from their children, and they shoot people and they kill people. We know the most vivid examples of Alex Pretti and Renee Good from Minneapolis. And they’re never investigated or charged if they’ve committed crimes. That doesn’t sound like law enforcement. It doesn’t sound like what your resolution says that partnering with ICE will support public safety,” Burr said.
“In fact, it will make public safety worse. You want to ensure the county’s continued commitment to professional law enforcement, these people don’t practice that. The sheriff’s office does, the police department does in this county, but ICE having any presence here will erode public confidence in law enforcement and it will bleed into the decades to come. I understand that you have a very limited idea of contracting with ICE, but once it is known in the county that you have contracted with ICE and you’re helping them, law enforcement in this county will suffer,” Burr said.
Susan Muzny, a retired LISD math teacher and now a volunteer in the community, acknowledged that most everyone is aware of Good and Pretti, “but are you aware of the deaths in ICE custody?” she asked, holding a list.
“About 40% of ICE arrests over the past year involve people without any kind of criminal record. My question is why should Polk County pay for a contract with ICE or get involved with a contract with ICE when most of the people they arrest are working in local businesses and paying taxes for benefits they’re not receiving. Why should we be a part of arresting people and then have our tax money pay for their detention and their flights? Please vote to table this,” Muzny said.
Carolyn Bischoff agreed. “The immigrant community of Polk County who are our home builders, concrete companies, our cooks and waitstaff where we eat, our housekeepers and our landscapers, but most importantly, they are our neighbors and they’re scared and rightly so. I know this firsthand. I talk with waitstaff and everybody else that will listen. I stop at construction sites and at food trucks in Livingston and Onalaska and I do this to simply look them in the eyes and ask if they and their families are okay,” Bischoff said.
“According to Homeland Security, 14% of the 400,000 arrested had no charges or convictions for criminal offenses. One of my many questions is will the sheriff’s office be allowing ICE to be around our schools, hospital and churches and if so, I feel that this will not only bring heightened fear and isolation to our community, but it will also erode the trust and respect that the Polk County law enforcement deservedly receives,” Bischoff said.
“I, too, am speaking against the agreement with ICE,” Willie White said. “ICE and its activities are having a negative impact on the lives of individuals and the overall wellbeing of the nation. Here in Texas, ICE activities have started to have a negative impact on the construction industry, just as it has had on the agricultural industry in other parts of the nation. With that in mind, what’s the hurry? Greg Abbott’s deadline is Dec. 1, not Feb. 10. The sheriff, a man of faith, should take care that justice is done – justice tempered with mercy and grace, all of which seems foreign to ICE,” White said.
“I’m sorry that Judge Murphy’s not here to deal with this and take a position on this issue of importance to the people of Polk County,” Bob Price said. “For more than 15 years, I’ve covered borders, security and immigration issues. In the 12 years that I’ve written for Breitbart News, I’ve written more than 7,000 articles and the majority of those are about border security and illegal immigration and law enforcement.
“The reason it takes 20 officers to make an arrest in Minneapolis is because they don’t do what Sheriff Byron Lyons and Polk County are doing here which is turning over criminal aliens inside the security of a jail to the law enforcement officials of ICE. I know this issue. I understand this issue and I understand what works. In July Sheriff Lyons made the right decision by entering Polk County into the ICE 287(g) warrant service officer program. This does not put officers out onto the streets enforcing immigration laws. This simply gives them the authority to deal with criminal illegal aliens who are in the Polk County Jail and turn them over to ICE in a safe and timely manner. This will use jail officers and doesn’t require the use of commissioned deputies, so it keeps the patrol deputies out on the street doing their job and allows us to have additional funds to support our jail,” Price said.
“The resolution that you are considering gives the county the opportunity to get necessary funding – $80,000-$120,000 a year – from the State of Texas to pay for this program and it will more than pay for the program. It will be additional funds that can be used in the county jail. Comptroller Kelly Hancock opened the applications for this Jan. 1. Here we are about six weeks later, just now getting to this. I urge you to get that done as quickly as possible. This raises the question as to why it’s taken this long to get it done,” Price said.
