PAINESVILLE, Ohio — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is teaming up with federal agents for immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sheriff Frank Leonbruno announced the agency has signed a pair of agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain people who are in the country illegally.
“It’s our job to detain people who break the law,” Leonbruno told News 5 on Wednesday. “This simply helps us codify our legal authority to do these detentions.”
A section added to federal immigration law in 1996, known as 287(g), allows ICE to partner with local law enforcement agencies. The sheriff said his office received the signed agreements last week, and deputies will need to complete special training before they can officially participate in the program.
Leonbruno said the agency’s partnership with ICE will be limited.
One agreement, known as the “Task Force Model” (TFM), allows deputies to enforce immigration laws during routine duties, such as traffic stops. If deputies encounter a person with an ICE detainer, they can take the person into custody and bring them to an ICE detention facility.
A second agreement, called the “Warrant Service Officer” (WSO) program, authorizes trained jail staff to serve and execute ICE warrants on current Lake County jail inmates. If a person set for release is found to be in the country illegally, the jail will hold the inmate for up to 48 hours until ICE agents retrieve the person.
Leonbruno said that the agreements will not change how the county jail operates, explaining the facility will not become an ICE detention center or house immigration detainees under a pay-for-stay model.
He also said the sheriff’s office will not initiate independent immigration violation investigations, nor will it participate in ICE raids unless specifically asked to help with high-risk violent offenders or cartel members.
“Firstly, we don’t have the manpower to do that. And secondly, that’s part of the federal government’s responsibility,” the sheriff said.
The move to partner with ICE has drawn criticism from some who believe local agencies don’t have the expertise to enforce immigration laws properly.
“There’s going to be a lot of people stopped and asked about their immigration status because of the way that they look or the way that they sound and potentially detained when they should not be detained,” said Stacy Cozart Martin, a partner with MJB Immigration.
She explained that her case volume has gone up in recent months, and so have concerns from many immigrants.
“What I moreso feel is the fear in the community,” she said. “They’re doing what the government has told them to do and they are being penalized for doing that because they’re either being detained in court or they’re just driving down the street and forgot their immigration documentation at home. And they’re being detained until they can show it or being detained for long periods of time.”
Others worry that the enforcement could erode public trust in some of Lake County’s diverse communities.
“Painesville specifically has a lot of races and ethnicities here. Like I said, it’s going to break up a lot of families,” said Analiese Twardzic, a visitor to Painesville on Wednesday.
The sheriff defended the agreements, saying he’s not bowing to political pressure but rather looking for ways to uphold the law.
“It’s not a political [decision]. It’s just that that’s the nature of law enforcement,” he said. “It’s our job to ensure that our deputies, our corrections officers, follow the constitution and give the civil rights to individuals that everyone is due. And I believe we do that as a sheriff’s office.”
