NOBLE COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) — The Noble County Sheriff’s Department entered an agreement with United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) in March that would allow some law enforcement officers to serve warrants involving immigration violations, an authority previously reserved for immigration officers.
WANE 15 spoke with Noble County Sheriff Max Weber Wednesday who said the agreement will give officers an extra tool in their belt, saving them time when dealing with undocumented immigrants, particularly at traffic stops.
“We’re not assisting in knocking on doors or anything like that,” said Weber. “We are just having the training so that if we come across someone on a traffic stop that has that warrant, then we can go ahead and arrest them at the time, serve that. That’s all that we are using that for.”
Sheriff Weber said that in the past 8 months, the Noble County Sheriff’s Department has only had one to two traffic stops involving individuals that were in the United States illegally.
If police have probable cause to believe that someone is undocumented, then I.C.E will be notified. However, this process can be lengthy.
“Those are things that we cannot take action upon {currently}. Those are not arrest warrants. Those are {administrative warrants} something handled through I.C.E.,” said Weber. According to the Sheriff, around eight officers with the Noble County Sheriff’s Department are looking to be certified by I.C.E to serve these warrants.
“If there’s local charges, then we would take them in on those local charges, contact I.C.E. and see if they would want to put a detention order on the individual.”
After local charges are processed, I.C.E. would then have 48 hours to let law enforcement know if the individual should be held for detention or not. If law enforcement is not notified, and the individual is done locally, they would be released, according to Weber.
“If we don’t have local charges, we would have to wait, contact ICE and have them send an officer or someone who is certified to serve that type of administrative warrant,” said Weber. “This could be hours and we don’t have that kind of time frame to wait for them to show up. “
Sheriff Weber said that I.C.E has not reached out since the agreement’s signing in March. Weber does not know when the officers’ training will begin; but once it’s over, the participating officers would be sworn in as federal officers for those specific types of events. While no officers have been trained yet, the agreement would save them hours of waiting for an approved officer to serve the warrant if there were no local charges.
“We are in no particular hurry to move forward with this if they are not,’ said Weber. “Its not like we have a rush of these anyway {traffic stops involving undocumented people}. All it was is to give an officer an opportunity if they come across…we are not actively going out there and seeking people…this is just in case they come across a traffic stop and it’s an extra tool in our belt to be able to do something without waiting for another officer to show up at the scene to take care of this.”
WANE 15 asked Sheriff Weber why Noble County was the only local county to enter the agreement.
The Noble County Sheriff’s Department requested to be part of the training after some officers showed interest. “Other counties have the opportunity to participate as well,” said Weber. “If they don’t want to send someone to do the training, that’s their responsibility.”
This agreement concerns administrative warrants only. To read the full agreement, click here.
Unlike judicial warrants that are issued by a judge, administrative warrants are issued by agencies. These warrants authorize specific, agency certified law enforcement officers to make arrests. However, these types of warrants are more strict regarding entry into private businesses and homes, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
To check out the full list of states with one or more of these agreements active, visit the map here. For the list of participating law enforcement agencies, click here.
Per the document, the agreement remains effective until “either party, upon 90-day written notice to the other party, provides notice of termination of suspension.”
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 added Section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) — authorizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
