Local law enforcement agencies won’t deputize officers to arrest undocumented residents
As Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents are being enlisted to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest undocumented residents, local law enforcement agencies say they won’t take an active role.
In enlisting officers for the effort, both the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office and the Wichita Police Department said it would take away from the officer’s actual duties, such as responding to calls and traffic enforcement.
“What’s going to happen is we’re going to have to figure out what we’re not going to respond to,” Sheriff Jeff Easter said recently to the Wichita Pachyderm Club. “We have to make damn sure we’re right that this person’s here unlawfully.
“We have to arrest them, book them into our jail, and then transport them all at our cost, your cost, to whatever ICE facility will hold them, which could be Texas or Louisiana.”
The KBI’s agreement comes in response to President Donald Trump’s calls for a crackdown on illegal immigration.
The Wichita Police Department said it “will not be part of any immigration task force,” police spokesperson Andrew Ford said in an email.
But that doesn’t mean the local agencies won’t assist in operations to arrest undocumented residents.
“We cooperate with every federal agency that works here in Wichita, that’s why we have such a close relationship,” Easter said. “If they’re doing some type of raid and they need us on the outside, you know, blocking traffic or crowd control, those type of things, the sheriff’s office is going to assist with that.”
Kansas was one of the first states, along with Missouri, to deputize its agents for immigration enforcement.
It’s able to do so as part of the federal Section 287(g) program, which allows ICE to work with local law enforcement agencies, primarily through their jails, to identify possible undocumented residents to then deport them.
Sedgwick County does not participate in this program, but Finney and Jackson County do.
Instead, Sedgwick County shares its jail intake data with ICE to run through its system and put detainers on jail residents if they’re undocumented.
“I don’t think I’m here, nor is the sheriff’s office here to do the federal government’s job,” Easter said. “We’ll assist them, but I can tell you, we make mistakes and we release people that shouldn’t have been released. At times, we will mess this up, and it could cost us a lot of money.”