Teton County let 103 illegal immigrants escape in two years, ICE says

Over the past 21 months, the Teton County Sheriff’s Office allowed 103 undocumented immigrants to slip through the cracks of immigration control (ICE), the Cowboy State Daily reported Tuesday.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Administration on Tuesday rejected earlier statements by Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr regarding a dispute over whether Carr’s office has discontinued ICE operations in recent months.

U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, made the dispute public, announcing in her Sunday newsletter that the Teton County Sheriff’s Office would not honor ICE hold requests.

One hundred holds were sunk

According to the email, since February 2023, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) has submitted 118 detainer requests to the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, asking the local agency to hold undocumented immigrants in jail for up to 48 hours until until ICE intercepts them. – an agency spokesman sent to the Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.

Detainers are often an administrative request from ICE for people who were already in jail on suspicion of other crimes but who ICE would like to take away before being released on bail or other conditions.

During that time, ICE’s statement said, 103 of those detainees collapsed after the jail released the suspects before ICE could get their hands on them.

“URE released 103 inmates who were booked into the Teton County Jail (after) they were not honored by the Teton County Sheriff’s Office,” ICE said in a statement.

There is some inconsistency here

“Additionally,” the statement continued, “the Teton County Sheriff’s Office does not notify (the ICE operation) before releasing non-citizens to jail, which limits (our) ability to act quickly in these cases.”

As a result, the statement points out, illegal immigrants are slipping out of the country before the agency deals with them.

On this point, Carr dissented.

He said Tuesday that his office notifies ICE when a foreign national has a bond hearing or is approaching another possible release date, – he repeated this statement in Monday’s interview from Cowboy State Daily.

“We let them know when their court date was and when they might be released,” Carr said.

Neither Carr’s interview nor ICE’s statements connect the two very different narratives.

However, John Fabbricatore, who previously served as ICE’s senior executive director for Colorado and Wyoming, said the sheriff’s office could notify ICE without having to notify ICE.

“Often sheriffs get around this problem by notifying ICE — but they will notify ICE 15, 20 minutes in advancey let (people) outside,” Fabbricatore said.

He said he didn’t know if that’s what Carr’s office was doing, and noted he didn’t know Carr personally or how involved Carr was with his office. But he’s seen this scenario with sheriffs who don’t want to cooperate with ICE.

“Especially sheriffs who don’t believe in the process but still want to follow it will say, ‘Look, we sent a notice to ICE!’– he said. “ANDand if you look at the notification and publication time, it will be a very short deadline.

Talking about the figure of 103 prisoners drowned, Fabbricatore said the number “knocked me over.”

“I thought:”ANDAre you kidding me? “It’s a large amount, especially for a small sheriff’s department,” he said. “Because AND a smaller department, which means there may be a large number of criminal aliens in the area.”

When it fell apart

The ICE statement shows that as of February 22, 2023, ICE and the Teton County Sheriff’s Office were not working together smoothly.

ICE’s official interview with Carr took place that day.

“During this correspondence, Sheriff Carr informed ICE that the Sheriff’s Office will only detain noncitizens pursuant to a court request signed by a judge,” the statement reads, adding that Carr also said the Sheriff’s Office was withdrawing from the intergovernmental agreement to provide services from the ICE Operations Team.

This agreement allowed ICE to pay to house undocumented immigrants in the Teton County Jail for up to 72 hours instead of the standard 48 hours.

Having such an agreement could alleviate sheriff’s concerns about the risk of being sued for holding people too long, Fabbricatore said. This agreement would allow the sheriff’s office to transfer detainees directly from the county jail to ICE custody without having to leave the facility.

I’m not sure what happened there

Carr told the Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that he had no memory of canceling that contract.

“I don’t know if such a contract was presented to us, or one we had and didn’t renovate,” Carr said. “I don’t know about this.”

Carr defended his decision to only detain people when ICE receives a warrant signed by a judge, expressing concerns that he could be sued for holding people too long.

Many other sheriffs in Republican-led states have no problem holding detainees for up to 48 hours after their release date, even if the detention request filed by ICE is not signed by a judge, Fabbricatore told Cowboy State Daily.

Carr said he didn’t feel comfortable with it because the American Civil Liberties Union considers Teton County “ripe” to file a lawsuit. He clarified that Teton had not previously been sued in this case.

“(But) we are certainly at risk, the ACLU is always watching us closely,” he said.

That’s because the community itself may be sympathetic to the ACLU’s lawsuit against the county on the issue, Carr added.

In your city

The statement says an ICE operations team conducted the operation in Teton County from Aug. 19-24. The Denver Task Force partnered with the U.S. Marshals Violent Offender Task Force to target 12 individuals with outstanding federal warrants.

The statement said that as a result of the operation, six people were successfully detained and six are still wanted.

On Monday, Carr told Cowboy State Daily that he had not heard about the operation in Teton County for several months.

Yet ICE says its operations team informed the Teton County Sheriff’s Office “from the beginning, consistent with ICE policy,” that it worked in Jackson Hole area.

The statement says ICE informs local sheriffs about the date of the operation, what addresses they visit and what vehicles they use.

“They said they had notified us; I don’t remember,” Carr said. “I remember hearing about it after the fact. I recall it having something to do with the Cheyenne (ICE) office, which is not typical of us. INWe generally work with (agents from) Casper.

The only Wyoming resident in the house

As for Hageman, who is Wyoming’s only representative in the House of Representatives, she said ICE’s statements support statements she made when disclosing the controversy in her Sunday newsletter.

“Teton County does not honor lawfully detained individuals released by ICE. “Teton County released illegal immigrants even though ICE required them to be held under U.S. immigration law,” Hageman wrote. “It is my understanding that every other county in Wyoming honors ICE detainer requests; the same ones that Teton County refuses to recognize.”

In a separate Tuesday interview with Cowboy State Daily by Jake Nichols Hageman said Carr seemed hesitant on his morning radio show when he was first quoted on the topic on Monday.

“Why is Teton County an issue?” asked Hageman.

She said some of the illegal immigrants were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence or sex crimes.

“Residents of Teton County and surrounding areas should be very concerned that (the authorities) are releasing illegal aliens into the community who have a criminal record or have been arrested for things that would actually qualify them to at least go through the deportation processHageman said

Clair McFarland you can arrive at [email protected].