The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
In light of an opinion issued Tuesday by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, the American Civil Liberties Union said that eight Ohio counties don’t have legal contracts with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement. That being the case, the ACLU of Ohio said, those detainees must be released.
However, one Ohio sheriff’s office said its contract with the feds meets the legal standards Yost laid out. Another said he’ll fix any problems, but he’s not releasing anybody.
For its part, Yost’s office declined to answer questions.
After taking office in January, President Donald Trump swiftly began implementing his policy of mass deportation. It was sold on promises that he would throw out violent criminals, but only 7% of those deported have been convicted of violent crimes.
Meanwhile, stories are accumulating of dodgy cases against beloved asylum seekers. Claims of human rights abuses are mounting. And some economists predict that removing so many from the workforce will make already-high inflation even worse.
Once a strong issue for Trump, by mid-July, just 35% of Americans approved of his handling of immigration, according to a Gallup Poll.
But regardless of the issue’s popularity, Ohio sheriffs have an incentive to take in ICE detainees. They get $125 per-person, per-day, while the feds cover most of their non-food expenses. That revenue has helped fill gaps in their budgets, one Ohio sheriff said.
In an opinion published Tuesday, Yost seemed to raise doubts about the legality of at least some of the arrangements. In response to a query from the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, the attorney general said county jails could hold ICE detainees longer than 48 hours, and they could provide services such as transport — but only under contracts between the feds and the county commissioners.
“The board of county commissioners may enter into an agreement with federal immigration authorities, on behalf of the sheriff, to detain aliens subject to removal in the county jail,” the opinion said. “The sheriff, however, does not have independent contracting authority for this purpose.”
At least two of the eight Ohio counties contracting to hold ICE detainees — Butler and Mahoning — are doing so after modifying contracts to hold prisoners on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.
RELATED: Local sheriffs work with ICE as ACLU demands transparency
The ACLU of Ohio on Wednesday said that wasn’t sufficient.
“Attorney General Yost has made abundantly clear that all county agreements with ICE must be authorized by the board of county commissioners,” Freda Levenson, the group’s legal director, said in a written statement. “County sheriffs cannot bootstrap themselves into having this authority. Striking these agreements means there is no legal authority to hold the immigrants currently incarcerated in our county jails. The people detained under these invalid agreements are being held unconstitutionally and must be released immediately.”
The attorney general’s office was asked if the ACLU was correct in saying that Yost’s ruling meant that hundreds of detainees were being held in Ohio illegally. It declined to answer.
“Your question is different than the specific question asked by the Butler County Prosecuting Attorney and we offer no answer in response — our office does not issue legal opinions or guidance to nonclients,” Steven Irwin, a spokesman, said in an email. “The opinion issued to the Butler County Prosecuting Attorney addressed a specific, narrow question on a positive power of government. We have nothing more to say at this time.”
The ACLU said eight county sheriffs offices had improper ICE agreements: Those in Butler, Fairfield, Fayette, Geauga, Lake, Portage, Mahoning and Seneca counties.
However, Butler County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Anthony E. Dwyer on Thursday said county commissioners there had signed off on his department’s arrangement with the feds. He sent along the commissioners’ resolution approving the modification of a contract to take in prisoners of the Marshals Service to also allow the jail to take ICE detainees.
“We got that agreement signed off on by the county commissioners,” Dwyer said in an interview. “The ACLU is a little mistaken about what they’re saying about Butler County.”
He added, “People have regularly come to commissioners meetings and talked about it, so it’s shocking that they’re that far behind that they don’t know that.”
Butler County housed 303 ICE detainees on Thursday. Mahoning County Jail in Northeast Ohio houses around 100 on a normal day.
Sheriff Jerry Greene was asked whether Yost’s opinion affected the legality of their detention.
“The answer is I don’t know at this point,” he said in an interview Thursday. “I’m not sure if the commissioners would be considered as officially parties to the contract. When we put it together, they were definitely in the know and we informed them every step of the way.”
As for the ACLU’s call to release the detainees, Greene was adamant.
“The answer is absolutely not,” he said. “I am doing this to support the federal government. We have housed federal inmates for years. We’re definitely going to make sure we’re constitutional and following the law… but I’m not releasing anybody. We’ll remedy it as soon as possible.”
