PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Bucks County’s recently elected sheriff has ended a controversial partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying that partnership made many in the county less safe, though some cooperation will remain.
Sheriff Danny Ceisler signed an order ending his office’s involvement with what’s known as 287(g), a partnership with ICE that allows county and local law enforcement to voluntarily be deputized to perform immigration enforcement.
Ceisler campaigned on the issue when he beat incumbent Republican Fred Herron in November, but said he didn’t scrap the county’s involvement in ICE’s 287(g) program until he weighed all the facts.
He believes the public safety costs outweighed the benefits, causing many in the immigrant community to fear being detained by law enforcement, regardless of their immigration status.
“If you come into this courthouse, you are a victim, you are a witness, you're an observer. No one's going to bother you about your immigration status. You are free to come in and see the judicial process play out and be a part of it and feel safe,” he said.
“When large numbers of our residents are afraid to call 911, or come to court and testify, that makes our entire community less safe. This is not a public safety problem for immigrants. This is a public safety problem for everyone.”
However, Ceisler said this would not make Bucks County a co-called “sanctuary county” or end all cooperation with ICE. Rather, it would return the county to the level of partnership before previous Sheriff Fred Herron signed on to 287(g).
“Under the system that we've been having for decades, anybody who is booked, anybody who's incarcerated, is fingerprinted, and then they go into that system. ICE is free, then, to have access to our correctional facility to detain that individual,” he explained.
“We will ensure that actual criminals, people involved in human trafficking, fentanyl distribution, child exploitation, violent crime and fraud — and are in the country illegally — are deported, which had been the standard practice in Bucks County for decades.”