BEDFORD, Va. – Some sheriffs are pushing back on a report from an immigration think tank designating them as sanctuary jurisdictions.
The Center for Immigration Studies recently updated its so-called sanctuary map, several local law enforcement agencies or jails to the list.
“Shocked, literally shocked. I, the sheriff or the sheriff’s office, has never been contacted by this organization,” Bedford County Sheriff Mike Miller told 10 News. “I don’t know where they’re compounding this information from.”
Miller said he spent the day researching the report and speaking with other law enforcement leaders, including the sheriff in neighboring Botetourt County
The counties were two of the agencies in our region found by the CIS as those that don’t fully comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to turn over inmates.
Areas like Lynchburg and Martinsville are also on the list, which was updated based on an internal ICE document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Our relationship with ICE, meaning the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, is a good relationship,” Miller said. “We share information. We help each other, probably we call them too much is what we end up doing.”
Martinsville Sheriff Steve Draper also told 10 News he was shocked by the report and said his agency had a good relationship with ICE.
“If we have someone come in who is an illegal immigrant, we notify them,” Draper said. “If they want to come pick them up, they pick them up.”
He did point out that inmates cannot be held in a facility if they make bond.
The Botetourt County Sheriff’s Office also responded to the report on social media, calling some posts about county’s status untrue.
Later in the day, in a statement to 10 News, the sheriff’s office said:
“Today we met with representatives from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ensure we were fully cooperating and to reaffirm our commitment to fully cooperating with their procedures for the removal of criminal non-citizens and removable aliens. We were assured our Agency was fully cooperating.
Within the past 12 months, the Botetourt-Craig Regional Jail has transferred custody of 12 non-citizens that ICE has determined to be removable aliens. It is important to clarify that any person committed to our correctional facility who was born in a country other than the United States or is not a legal citizen of the United States is reported to ICE through an Immigration Alien Query (IAQ) to determine whether the person is illegally present in the United States. Just because a non-citizen is committed to our facility does not mean they will be removed by ICE. ICE is the only agency that makes the determination to remove a criminal non-citizen and whether probable cause exists that the subject is a removable alien.”
The memo tracks areas considered to be in limited cooperation or noncooperative with requests from ICE. CIS tells 10 News it adds jurisdictions to the sanctuary map even if ICE finds them in partial compliance.
Bedford and Botetourt are considered among those in limited compliance, meaning they do let ICE know about non-citizens in their custody but don’t turn them over in a timely manner.
Miller points out that Bedford County is part of the Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority, so the county doesn’t run its own jail.
“Our job is to take the person that is arrested to the magistrate and if the magistrate deems them to be under a bond, then they committed to then regional jail,” Miller said. “We don’t have anything else to do with that inmate then till he or she goes to court and we testify.”
Miller said some of the report’s findings may stem from a 2015 Virginia Attorney General’s Office opinion that found that ICE detainers are voluntary requests.
“It does not create for a law enforcement agency either an obligation or legal authority to maintain custody of a prisoner who is otherwise eligible for immediate release from local or state custody,” wrote then-Attorney General Mark Herring. “For that reason, an adult inmate or a juvenile inmate with a fixed release date should be released from custody on that date notwithstanding the agency’s receipt of an ICE detainer.”
Miller said he would discuss the issue with ICE and current AG Jason Miyares’ office to clear up any confusion.