Berks sheriff deputies will get training to assist federal immigration officers

by Steve Reinbrecht

The Berks Sheriff Department will be the first in Pennsylvania to get federal training to help U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents detain undocumented immigrants under a program called 287(g).

Berks Sheriff Eric Weaknecht said he knows Berks needs better enforcement because so many undocumented immigrants are processed for felonies in the county booking center.

“Nothing’s being done with them” at the federal level, he said.

The 287(g) program allows a state or local law enforcement entity to enter into a partnership with ICE to receive “delegated authority for immigration enforcement within their jurisdictions.”

Of the 3,141 counties in the United States, 37 have signed up for the 287 (g) program, the latest on Feb.28, and none in Pennsylvania.

Weaknecht applied to the federal training program in 2009, but federal officials withdrew the funding.

Under the Trump administration, he expects funding to become available. Trump signed an executive order on immigration enforcement in January that encourages more local involvement for 287(g) training. Once trained, local officers are authorized to interview, arrest, and detain anybody who may be in violation of immigration laws.

Four deputies will get the 4-week training so that one trained deputy will be available around the clock, Weaknecht said. They will perform their normal duties until ICE officers request assistance, he said.

According to the ICE website, counties in these states are in the cooperative 287(g) program.

Alabama                   Nevada

Arizona                     New Jersey

Arkansas                  North Carolina

California                  Ohio

Florida                      Oklahoma

Georgia                    South Carolina

Maryland                  Texas

Massachusetts          Virginia

I’m not sure if the list is up-to-date. A woman who answered the phone at the ICE PR office didn’t know and told me to send an e-mail to “ICE media.”

by Steve Reinbrecht

Wow! So far in 2017, about 20 counties have joined the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] agency’s “287(g)” program to cooperate with federal immigration agents.

Although Berks County Sheriff Eric Weaknecht said in March that he wanted to join, our county is not on the latest list.

Berks is home to tens of thousands of Latinos, immigrants of all sorts, and Trump supporters – plus a world-infamous ICE child-detention center -- so you would think our community newspaper, the Reading Eagle, would follow the story.

The idea behind 287(g) is that if people don’t have documents, local deputies would keep them in jail, after they would normally be released, until ICE can show up. 

Although that seems reasonable to some, others criticize the idea. They argue that having local police involved in immigration enforcement will discourage vulnerable people, such as beaten wives and other crime victims, from seeking police help. Others say it violates the Constitution by detaining people without cause.

And some say they are breaking the law and should have their lives torn apart, forgetting that the United States has a proud history of overturning such unreasonable but steadfast laws – like those permitting slavery, or prohibiting women from owning property, or men from having sex with men, or white men from marrying black women, or lately, smoking pot.