The Dallas branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement contacted Denton Mayor Gerard Hudspeth last week to set up a meeting with city leaders to discuss ICE’s 287(g) program that could give Denton police the authority to screen people in custody for immigration offenses.
In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring ICE to partner with local and state law enforcement under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, based on a determination by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
ICE describes the 287(g) program as protecting the U.S. “through the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws.”
Hudspeth didn’t respond to a request for comment by Tuesday evening.
Dustin Sternbeck, the city’s chief communication officer, confirmed that an agent from ICE’s Dallas office had contacted the mayor last week to set up a meeting to discuss the program. Sternbeck said City Manager Sara Hensley alerted other council members to the request.
“Anything that would come out of the meeting will be presented to council,” Sternbeck said.
Under Denton’s weak-mayor system, which means the City Council has equal power to the mayor on policy decisions, the council will have to approve the Denton Police Department’s participation in the program.
In a follow-up email Tuesday afternoon, Sternbeck wrote: “Following a request to meet and as a matter of routine practice, the City has agreed to listen to details on the federal 287 program. I want to be clear that this meeting does not signify a commitment to a partnership or any specific course of action. Our priority is to fully understand the details of the program and its potential implications for our community.”
In February, the Denton County Commissioners Court unanimously approved a 287(g) agreement between ICE and the Denton County Sheriff’s Office, according to the county spokesperson.
“This demonstrates our collaboration with federal partners to ensure we are enforcing our immigration laws,” Denton County Judge Andy Eads said Tuesday in a statement to the Denton Record-Chronicle.
The Record-Chronicle contacted City Council members and Denton Police Chief Jessica Robledo for comment, and most had not responded by Tuesday evening.
In a Tuesday email, Mayor Pro Tem Suzi Rumohr said ICE Dallas had contacted Hudspeth to meet “with him and his ‘team’ to share how it is partnering with other governments in the region. ‘Team’ was not defined in the meeting request. It is my understanding that a meeting was scheduled, but I don’t know the date.”
Rumohr indicated that a meeting had been scheduled, but she wasn’t sure when.
“To my knowledge, no other council members are involved at this time,” Rumohr wrote. “No single council member, including the Mayor, can set policy or make agreements with another entity on their own. Any agreements must come before the full Denton City Council for discussion and a vote. Should the Mayor wish to propose anything as a result of the meeting, he would need to bring it before the full city council for discussion and a decision.”
Sternbeck didn’t respond to a request for information about when the meeting is scheduled.
Council member Brian Beck shared his emailed response to staff last week, indicating that he opposed the idea and reiterating what he wrote on Tuesday, saying that “given the recent behavior surrounding ICE and the Trump administration and their aggressive and egregious trampling of due-process, I don’t support ANY engagement with ICE other than that legally required — not even this meeting.”
In his email response, Beck said that while Hudspeth “can do as he wishes,” nothing the mayor says obligates the city, staff or police force to any action. He added that the city shouldn’t “in any way act receptive to any suggestion, interest or acquiescence of support without majority direction from Council.”
“I cannot stress how seriously the large majority of communication from members of the community to myself have been regarding repudiation of current ICE tactics and behavior and concomitantly how supportive they are for the precarious situation many immigrant families — both traditional and undocumented — find themselves in,” Beck wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union called the 287(g) program one that “effectively turns local officials into ICE agents.”
Since Trump’s executive order in January, ICE has signed 900 agreements for the 287(g) program in 40 states as of Tuesday, according to documentation published by the department.
The 287(g) program is divided into three models, according to the program website:
- The jail enforcement model, designed to identify and process “removable aliens” — those with criminal or pending criminal charges — who are arrested by state and local law enforcement agencies.
- The task force model, in which law enforcement agencies can enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight.
- The warrant service officer program, which allows ICE to train and authorize state and local law enforcement officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens in their agency’s jail.
As of Aug. 1, ICE had jail enforcement agreements with 123 law enforcement agencies in 27 states, task force model agreements with 444 agencies in 40 states and warrant service officer agreements with 333 agencies in 35 states.
In February, the Denton County Commissioners Court entered into a jail enforcement agreement with ICE.
Other nearby counties and their agreements include jail enforcement agreements with Grayson and Tarrant counties; warrant service officer programs with Cooke, Jack, Parker and Hood counties; and Rockwall County with all three models, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
Keller’s City Council voted unanimously last week to make the city part of ICE’s 287(g) program.
While ICE is responsible for the installation and maintenance of the IT infrastructure, Denton County must cover the sheriff’s personnel expenses, which include salaries, benefits and overtime for all of its personnel being trained and performing duties under the agreement, according to the county’s Feb. 11 agreement.
ICE, however, is responsible for travel expenses while the sheriff’s personnel are in training.
Under the jail enforcement model agreement, participating sheriff’s personnel are granted additional law enforcement power, including the ability to interrogate jail detainees about their legal status and to facilitate transferring custody of those without legal status to ICE for possible deportation.
On Tuesday, Beck said he was “exceedingly grateful” that Hensley would be in attendance at the meeting with ICE.
“We need more than ICE and the mayor’s perspective on how the city of Denton feels about ICE,” Beck said.
Beck was also concerned about how much it will cost the city since the federal government isn’t reimbursing participating agencies. He called it an extra financial burden on the Police Department and the city, which he said is “already trying to figure out how to get out from underneath overtime and trim our budget.”
“That is not the role of the police to be doing these kinds of immigration control things. That is a federal job,” Beck said. “The feds should pay our officers to do it, and it should not be an unfunded mandate.”