Will Tarrant keep letting deputies work as ICE agents? You’ll have to comment in person
Tarrant County leaders next week will take up the renewal of a federal program that lets sheriff’s deputies work as ICE agents.
And after months of allowing residents to call in comments on issues the Republican-led county commissioners court voted this week to require comments now be delivered in person.
This came after Commissioner J.D. Johnson on Tuesday was able to participate in the meeting by video conference, rather than by phone.
“Now that he is on video ... that basically puts us back into the same environment we were in before the governor loosened the restrictions,” Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said. “Now that public officials are here, the public has to be here too.
“You can come and say whatever you want to say.”
In the wake of the coronavirus, Gov. Greg Abbott loosened Open Meeting requirements to let officials participate in meetings via phone, which opened the door for residents to do the same.
Whitley this week noted that when commissioners in 2019 considered renewing the federal program known as 287(g), they had a day-long briefing where residents voiced their opinion about the program.
“And the next week I said, ‘OK, I’m very interested in hearing new information.”
But when residents spoke the day of the vote, “they did not respect our time and they came up and said exactly the same thing,” Whitley said Tuesday. “Respect goes both ways.”
Supporters say the program makes Tarrant County safer. Opponents believe migrants are scared they will be targeted and deported for something as small as a traffic ticket.
Commissioner Devan Allen, one of two Democrats on the five-member court, said the decision to require people to comment in person on the issue feels wrong.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “I do not think it’s the right thing for us to do. So I will not support us taking action that would limit people’s ability to voice their opinion about this or any other issue.
“This is our job to sit here and listen to our community and to take into consideration their concerns.”
Commissioner Roy Brooks, the other Democrat, said that 287(g) has evoked such passion “that we need to give persons who wish to address the issue the broadest latitude possible and not try to cut off a person’s ability to comment arbitrarily.”
Commissioner Gary Fickes said he understands why residents were allowed to call in comments initially. But now, since Johnson could participate via video conferencing, Fickes said the county has “fulfilled the requirements of the Open Meeting Act and can cease having phone calls.”
Allen proposed letting the public continue to make comments by email and phone calls. Brooks supported her motion.
It failed on a 3-2 vote.
The three Republican commissioners — Whitley, Fickes and Johnson — voted against letting comments continue any way other than in person.
Critics are calling on people to show up at the Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The group ICE out of Tarrant County added an event called Unite to End 287g on Facebook.
“Show the commissioners that at the end of the day, the court works for us, and if they don’t want to, then we will have to find new commissioners who will,” the group stated on Facebook.
Time to extend?
At issue Tuesday will be an extension of the contract known as 287(g). This refers to a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows law enforcement agencies to work with federal immigration officers and “perform immigration law enforcement functions.”
President Donald Trump pushed for these agreements between law enforcement agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through an executive order. The order was perceived by Trump supporters as a delivery of his campaign promise to focus on illegal immigration.
In 2017, newly elected Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn agreed to have 12 deputies trained to act as ICE agents under the federal program.
The clock expires nationwide on 287(g) agreements at the end of June.
Tarrant commissioners last year voted along party lines, with Whitley, Fickes and Johnson in support and Brooks and Allen in opposition, to extend the contract for one year.
Pros and cons
Dozens of residents have been calling the court in recent weeks to oppose another extension of the contract.
Tarrant County is home to more than 2 million people. The undocumented population is estimated at 109,000, according to the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute.
Waybourn last year told residents that sheriff’s deputies are not racially profiling or conducting raids for ICE.
Waybourn, who likened the work to being on a task force, has said deputies perform ICE duties while also doing their routine tasks. He said the deputies’ salaries are paid by the county and the federal government pays for travel, boarding, meals and other expenses associated with ICE training.
The program has existed for several decades, has been used in both Republican and Democratic administrations and has been criticized by people in both parties.
But it became a piece of the nation’s immigration debate with Trump’s 2016 election and has come under fire in recent years by immigration allies who describe it as discriminatory because it opens the door to racial profiling.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department is one of 77 law enforcement agencies in 21 states participating in the program and one of 24 sheriff’s departments in Texas, according to a list compiled by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The list stated that ICE has these agreements with 64 law enforcement agencies in nine states.
