Bucks County sheriff wants to help ICE enforce immigration laws through a controversial partnership program

The Bucks County Sheriff’s Department is seeking to join a controversial partnership program where local police officers help ICE enforce federal immigration laws.

The department would be the first in the Philadelphia region to collaborate with ICE under an initiative known as “287(g),” named for a section of a 1996 immigration law.

“Those who break the law should face the consequences of their actions — regardless of immigration status,” Bucks Sheriff Fred Harran said in a statement issued Thursday. The program bolsters overall law enforcement capacity, enabling better protection of the community, he said.

Harran described his department’s involvement as a “narrowly defined initiative focused on public safety,” one in which 12 of the department’s 76 deputies would be trained to access a federal immigration database, identifying people taken into custody on criminal charges and who have outstanding warrants in Bucks County.

Deputies would not be authorized to perform general immigration enforcement in the community, or to ask about someone’s immigration status during routine interactions, he said.

The news immediately provoked outcry.

Laura Rose, group leader of Indivisible Bucks County, an advocacy organization, said, “We now need to decide what kind of community we want in Bucks County,” one that nurtures neighborhoods by keeping them free of fear or one that sows distrust of police and division among neighbors.

“It’s a stark choice, and one that Sheriff Harran’s decision to participate in 287(g) has now forced on us,” she said.

The news of the sheriff’s department’s pending agreement with ICE was first reported by the Bucks County Beacon.

Harran described the program as a money-saver, saying that transferring immigration prisoners to federal custody would free county taxpayers from the financial burden of having to jail and transport them.

The department is continuing to talk to members of immigrant communities, faith leaders, and other stakeholders “to ensure the initiative’s purpose is clear and its effectiveness shared,” Harran said.

The 287(g) program has sparked protest in Bucks County before. A 2018 effort by the community of Bensalem to partner with ICE drew huge opposition and was subsequently abandoned.

Heidi Roux, executive director of Immigrant Rights Action in Doylestown, said the sheriff’s department should withdraw its application to ICE.

“Saying it’s concerning is an understatement,” she said Thursday. “We’ve worked so hard to build trust in our community, so that [immigrants] feel like our law enforcement is there to ensure the public safety of all who live in Bucks County. This will break that trust and reduce the identification of people who commit crimes.”

Police departments and local governments that limit cooperation with ICE say that their stance helps create trust and gain cooperation in immigrant communities, that undocumented crime victims and witnesses will not come forward if they fear being arrested and deported because of their lack of legal status.

Currently, other applications to help ICE are pending from the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Department and the Northwest Regional Police Department, based in Elizabethtown, a borough in that county. The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department in south-central Pennsylvania is believed to be the only county agency in the state that has partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE officials did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday.

The ICE program was established by Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

It designates three separate program models: “Jail Enforcement,” to identify and process those with criminal or pending charges who may be removed; the “Warrant Service Officer” program to authorize local police to execute ICE administrative warrants at jails; and the “Task Force” model that ICE says “serves as a force multiplier” by providing community police with limited immigration authority.

The Bucks sheriff’s office would participate in the task force program, Harran said in his statement.

The 287(g) program has been rejected by jurisdictions that say they pay their police officers to enforce local laws and assist local residents, not to do the work of the federal government.

A 2022 study by the American Civil Liberties Union found what it said were widespread civil rights violations among more than 100 law enforcement agencies that took part.

Some police departments dropped out of the program after Lehigh County and Allentown authorities were successfully sued for keeping a man of Puerto Rican descent in prison — even after he posted bail — so that ICE could investigate whether he was in the country illegally.

It turned out that Ernesto Galarza was born in New Jersey, and his settlement for three days behind bars cost taxpayers $145,000.

But partnerships between ICE and local police agencies have surged since Donald Trump was elected president in November.

On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which required ICE to continue authorizing state and local police to assist in enforcement.

As of Thursday, 455 law enforcement agencies in 38 states have signed agreements with ICE.

Manpower is a constant challenge for the federal agency, responsible for carrying out what Trump says will be the largest deportation effort in American history. The agency employs about 20,000 people in the U.S. and around the world, while the undocumented population in this country numbers about 13 million.

Advocates of the program say that is part of why 287(g) is needed, to assist federal agents in the lawful performance of their duties.

Polls show support for deportations. A new study by the Pew Research Center found that nearly a third of Americans say all undocumented immigrants in the United States should be deported, and an additional half want some people kicked out under certain circumstances.

The effort to bring an ICE partnership to Bucks has failed before.

Elected leaders in Bensalem argued in 2018 that the community of 60,354, which hugs the border of Northeast Philadelphia, would be safer if police helped enforce immigration laws.

They said officers would be able to identify and arrest dangerous criminals without infringing on individual rights or even bothering law-abiding, undocumented immigrants.

“We will stay within the law,” Bensalem Mayor Joe DiGirolamo said at the time. “No profiling, we would never do that.”

Harran was then the longtime Bensalem director of public safety, having previously served the community as a police officer.

Advocacy groups, including the Bucks County NAACP and Buxmont Inclusive and Progressive, said then that the alliance with ICE was not only unneeded, but also sure to create fear in immigrant communities and hurt relations between police officers and residents.

Harran said Thursday that throughout his nearly four decades in law enforcement, it has been clear that community safety is best served through collaboration and strategic police deployment.

The application to ICE, he said, “is a direct extension of this commitment — a deliberate step to enhance our ability to protect residents by working with federal authorities within the course of our duties.”

This story has been corrected to reflect that news of the agreement was first reported by the Bucks County Beacon, not WHYY.