Q&A – Can State & Local Law Enforcement Do More to Combat Illegal Immigration?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Today’s note was submitted via talkback. The listener expressed frustration that it appeared as though local and state law enforcement agencies, in addition to the federal government, weren’t enforcing existing immigration laws.
Bottom Line: Your frustration is entirely understandable, though as it pertains to state and local law enforcement, it’s misplaced. It was on April 15th, 2021 – fewer than three months into Joe Biden’s presidency that Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis sounded the first warning regarding the impact of the Biden administration’s illegal immigration policies having the potential to harm Floridians. As I covered at the time: DeSantis sued the Biden administration over a key policy change. The failure to remove criminal illegal immigrants from Florida. As the Governor noted: We had a great agreement with the Trump administration where if their term was up, ICE would pick them up and remove them and bring them back to their home country. (The Biden administration is) refusing to do these requests, so when someone finishes a term, a criminal alien, ICE is allowing them to be released back into our community. It will absolutely put the American people in danger, and we are doing other things to work with local communities, doing the best they can to protect other people.
In filing the lawsuit AG Ashley Moody stated: (The decision) will allow criminal aliens to be released into and move freely in the state of Florida, and their resulting crime will cost the state millions of dollars on law enforcement, incarceration, and crime victim’s assistance. It will also cause unquantifiable harm to Florida’s citizenry and will force the state to expend its own law enforcement resources to pick up the slack.
The change in the Biden Administration's policy was with the issuance and use of detainers to process and deport illegal immigrants detained by state and local law enforcement agencies. Preceding the Biden administration the customary practice was that once state and local law enforcement agencies detained someone lacking legal status – they'd notify ICE. ICE would then issue detainer requests to remove criminal illegal immigrants from Florida (deportation) upon the completion of their prison sentences. With the federal government refusing its responsibility to enforce even the most basic of its responsibilities, to remove illegal immigrants who are also convicted criminals upon the completion of a prison sentence - Florida officials are left with no choice but to release criminal illegal immigrants back into society.
Last year there was a resolution to legal challenges filed by Florida, and other states pertaining to the Biden administration's lack of enforcement of immigration laws. In an 8-1 Supreme Court ruling, the court ruled that states can’t force the federal government to arrest, process and deport illegal immigrants – nor are states allowed to attempt to deport illegal immigrants. The court ruled it’s a federal issue. Clearly, the state has attempted to do all it can do to combat illegal immigration externally, including the deployment of troops and law enforcement to the southern border, in addition to South Florida currently. Specific to local law enforcement agencies...
As recently as 2019 there were 26 Florida cities noted by the Center for Immigration studies as “sanctuary cities”, or those which either didn’t seek ICE detainers for detained illegal immigrants and/or weren’t cooperative with ICE over the use of detainers. As of today, there are zero sanctuary cities in Florida and there haven’t been any in years. In 2019 Governor DeSantis signed a law banning sanctuary cities and all related policies throughout the state. Far from being part of the problem, local law enforcement agencies are generally the most frustrated when it comes to the current illegal immigration crisis as they’re on the front lines of the often-criminal impact of it. This was expressed by Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw just last week as he publicly lamented the Biden administration's policy following the abduction and sexual assault of a woman by three illegal immigrants. As he told me: We contacted ICE on these three guys and there’s detainers on them. But see that’s the system that used to be in place. If you stopped an illegal for any type of traffic problem. They had no driver’s license. They’re illegally in the United States. They used to be brought to the county jail and we’d call ICE. We had an ICE agent in the jail, and they would take them down to Miami to (process them for deportation). Under the present administration at the federal government, that doesn’t happen anymore. They’ve limited ICE’s ability to do anything. That’s part of the problem. Basically, it’s an open floodgate and hands off the people that are here...and it can’t keep going like that. They’ve got to get back to the days where ICE did their job, and we did our job.
That’s the issue here. It’s not that local or state law enforcement agencies aren’t enforcing existing laws. It all points back to the federal government. Syracuse University’s TRAC Immigration program keeps records on the enforcement of ICE detainers. The most recent information available is from 2021, or Biden’s first year in office, though it serves to paint the picture of how much has changed. During the Trump administration, an average of 8,600 ICE enforcement detainers, or about 24 per day were carried out for deportation in Florida. In the first year of the Biden administration that number dropped by well over half to 3,953, or about 11 per day – despite a record surge of illegal immigration.
Just yesterday the Supreme Court allowed Texas’ recently enacted illegal immigration law, in which they would deport those lacking legal status if the federal government won’t, to stand while legal challenges to the law play out. However, shortly thereafter an appellate court ruled against the Texas law - blocking their efforts once again. If the Supreme Court does decide to reverse course on this matter allowing Texas’ law to stand – you can rest assured Florida and other concerned states will follow suit. In the meantime, in order to fix the issue rather than to attempt to deal with its problems at the state level regardless, the resolution must come at the federal level. You’ll have an opportunity to vote to make that happen in November.