Montco officials change jail detainer policy amid outcry over undocumented mother being turned over to ICE

Montgomery County jail officials have dropped their policy of holding immigrants wanted by ICE even after they’ve posted bail, a practice that has enabled federal agents to arrest people who might otherwise have been freed.

The decision comes three days after The Inquirer reported on the case of a woman who was held by the county for hours after her $77 bail was paid, then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who were provided time to get to the jail.

Andrea Lozano-Alanis, 31, of Norristown, now faces deportation to Mexico. She’s being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Clearfield County, according to immigration advocates.

A coalition of immigration groups said Friday they were heartened by the policy change and “cautiously hopeful that this will mark the end of ICE detainers in Montgomery County.”

“However, this change comes too late for the many community members who are now in ICE detention or have been deported due to past [county] collaboration with ICE.”

County officials said they had been considering the policy change for weeks.

The warden of the jail, formally called the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, announced the change in policy to the prison board at its monthly meeting on Thursday. Previously, the county automatically held those named in ICE detainers for an additional four hours after they posted bail.

An ICE detainer is an agency-issued request, usually to a jail or police department, to hold someone past the time they would normally be released.

ICE says that allows agents to take custody of immigrants in a safe, controlled environment, rather than face the uncertainty of making a public arrest.

But legal advocates note that ICE requests are exactly that, requests. The city of Philadelphia, for instance, refuses to honor ICE detainers unless they are accompanied by a signed judicial warrant.

Now the Montgomery County jail will do the same, recognizing only those warrants that have been approved and signed by a judge.

It was an ICE detainer that triggered the events that led to Lozano-Alanis’ detention — outraging activists who say county officials have no right to hold people who have met their legal bail conditions. They point out that jurisdictions in other places have been successfully sued for doing that.

Immigration advocates have been upset that a Democrat-run county that continually asserts its support for immigrants — this year establishing and staffing an immigrant affairs office — has actively helped ICE enforce immigration regulations when no law requires it to do so.

The county now will hold people for up to 24 hours if it receives a judicial warrant.

County officials confirmed the change on Friday morning. The news was earlier reported by WHYY.

Democratic Commissioners Neil Makhija and Jamila Winder, who had been silent on Lozano-Alanis’ arrest, issued a statement on Friday: “The MCCF’s policy to require a judicial warrant ensures that all outside agencies — whether the federal government, states, or neighboring counties — have done their due diligence and follow the rule of law.“

Tom DiBello, the lone Republican among the three-member county commissioners, told The Inquirer on Friday that he was disappointed by the decision. The county folded to the complaints of immigration activists and created a fresh roadblock for federal authorities, he said.

“We’re putting that above all the safety of our communities,” he said.

On Friday five civil rights and advocacy groups — CAIR Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition, Unides Para Servir Norristown, the Worri Center, and the Movement for Black and Brown Lives in Montgomery County — noted that the county’s policy has been in place since 2014.

Yet that policy changed in less than a week after Lozano-Alanis was turned over to ICE, “which proves what we have known all along,” that “the county has always had the power to end ICE collaboration.”

The groups again called on the commissioners to pass a “welcoming” ordinance to support immigrants.

County officials have been resistant to enact such a policy, noting limits to their power and concerns that a formal welcoming ordinance could give a false sense of safety to undocumented immigrants. They’ve emphasized efforts to offer support through the new office of immigrant affairs.

Denisse Agurto, executive director of Unides Para Servir Norristown, said Friday that she wanted to see the new detainer policy in writing, and not just depend on verbal assurances.

“This is a good start,” she said, adding that “we want to see this written. We need a clear description.”

Agurto said she spoke in a phone call to Lozano-Alanis, who was concerned about her 6-year-old son, an American citizen by birth.

Two lawyers have stepped forward to handle Lozano-Alanis’ immigration case, Agurto said.

Lozano-Alanis was jailed on June 3, after an incident in which she allegedly rammed her car into that of a romantic partner outside a Truist bank in East Norriton.

The criminal charges against her included child endangerment because her son was inside her car. She was also accused of recklessly endangering another person, careless and reckless driving, and driving without a license.

On the morning of June 6, Unides Para Servir Norristown was contacted for help by Lozano-Alanis’ mother. She knew her daughter had been arrested by East Norriton police, but had no idea where she was jailed.

Supporters learned she was being held at MCCF on $77 bail, and that an ICE detainer had been lodged.

At 4:30 p.m., advocates said, the Montgomery County commissioners were directly notified about what was occurring. A group of 15 to 20 supporters went to the jail to advocate for her and prepare to drive her home.

Lozano-Alanis’ bail was paid at about 7:45 p.m., but, activists said, they were told she would not be freed for another four hours and that ICE had been notified of her pending release, as per the county policy.

At about 11:30 p.m., supporters who had gathered at MCCF in Eagleville in Lower Providence Township were told by county staff that Lozano-Alanis had been taken by ICE.

For months, as President Donald Trump increased immigration enforcement, Montgomery County residents and immigration advocates have lobbied the board of commissioners to adopt a “welcoming” ordinance. That would block the county from holding inmates on ICE detainers once they have met bail conditions.

Montgomery County recently was named on a Trump-administration list of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, places threatened with loss of federal funding, though officials there have adopted no such policies.

The county’s four-hour-hold policy had remained in place even as a federal appeals court ruled that local governments were not obligated to honor ICE detainers — and that those governments could be liable for wrongful detainment under some circumstances.

In 2020, for example, Los Angeles County paid a $14 million settlement after its sheriff’s department held more than 18,000 people on detainers.

In Pennsylvania, Lehigh County and Allentown authorities were successfully sued for keeping a man of Puerto Rican descent in prison so that ICE could investigate whether he was legally in the country

Ernesto Galarza was born in New Jersey, and his settlement cost taxpayers $145,000 in 2014.