Sheriffs want DHS alert when illegal immigrants are shipped to their counties

Sheriffs are demanding to be notified of new arrivals as the Department of Homeland Security ships tens of thousands of illegal immigrants throughout the country. They say locals will have to keep track of migrants if federal officials can’t.

At the very least, they need to be aware of migrants whom law enforcement agencies are dropping off in their jurisdictions, several sheriffs told The Washington Times last week on the sidelines of the National Sheriffs’ Association meeting in downtown Washington.

“You’re sending them to any county in this country, they need to notify the sheriff of that county who’s arriving,” said Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County in Massachusetts. “We have a right to know that. If they’re shipping terrorists into our neighborhood, we have a right to know that. Drug dealers, smugglers — we have a right to know that.”

The sheriffs are making the demand as reports detail illegal immigrant releases in communities across the country.

It’s not clear how different the busing and flight arrangements are compared with those under past administrations, but the sheer numbers involved are drawing intense attention.

When asked what information they get from Biden administration officials, sheriffs on the association’s border security committee delivered a one-word answer: “Crickets.”

They say that needs to change, particularly because they are the ones who end up dealing with problems the system creates.

“It would give us an opportunity to know who’s coming, and it would also give us the opportunity to not necessarily track, but if we haven’t seen this person, we should then be able to notify the people [who] are sending that data out,” said Sheriff Troy Wellman of Moody County, South Dakota.

He said sheriffs aren’t looking for more work but could serve as check-in locations for illegal immigrants who are out on release under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Washington Times reached out to ICE for comment for this article.

It’s not clear what a notification system would look like, though several sheriffs pointed to existing sex-offender registries as a model.

The Homeland Security Department has released hundreds of thousands of migrants into the U.S. in the past year. In January alone, ICE and Customs and Border Protection released more than 62,000 new border crossers. News reports have documented airplane flights of migrants from the border region to locations across the country, sparking outrage and calls for investigations from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Immigration advocates say such flights are nothing out of the ordinary, though the numbers may be particularly large given the magnitude of the border problem.

ICE and the Department of Health and Human Services operate the flights. ICE is flying migrant adults and families to its detention facilities, and HHS flies unaccompanied juveniles to shelters or delivers them to sponsors — usually family, often in the country illegally.

Some migrants caught and released by Customs and Border Protection have been seen on video heading for airports and flying away from border areas.

Nonprofit groups often pay for their tickets. Lawmakers say the nonprofits then bill the government.

One flight of unaccompanied juveniles last year from Texas to New York sparked an outcry. The sheriff of the county where the flight landed told the Albany Times Union that his office should have been notified.

In another incident that gained national attention, a 24-year-old Honduran man who posed as a juvenile was charged with killing his sponsor in Florida last fall. The New York Post reported that the man was sent on one of the government-sponsored flights.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody cited that case Tuesday when she told Fox News that she and more than a dozen other Republican state attorneys general were calling for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Ms. Moody also pointed to the surge of fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid, coming across the U.S.-Mexico border. The sheriffs told The Times that the supply is reaching every corner of the country.

Overall, the sheriffs who spoke to The Times said they deserve more coordination and communication from federal officials.

“Transparency is one thing that’s lacking,” said Sam S. Page, sheriff in Rockingham County, North Carolina. “Why can’t we get the same respect and communications with our federal partners?”

One example came from Zapata County, Texas, where Sheriff Raymundo Del Bosque said smuggling suspects have gone free because of bureaucratic bungling. Those are cases where federal officials claim priority in questioning a suspect, but the Justice Department then decides not to bring charges and the suspect is released.

That means the locals can’t complete their own cases, the sheriff said.

“We’re just waiting on them to call us and let us know they’re not going to file federal charges. I send my investigators, and they’re not there anymore,” he said. “It didn’t meet their [target] to file federal charges.”

“We’re like, ‘What did you do with them?’ They’re like, ‘They’re not here at the location anymore,’” he said.