Montco bars county employees from sharing information with ICE without a legal order
Under the new policy, staffers are barred from sharing people’s immigration status without a supervisor’s OK.
Montgomery County officially barred its employees from providing information to ICE on Wednesday, directing them to withhold data like immigration status and country of origin unless directed to do so by their superiors.
“County employees are not deputized federal immigration agents,” according to the policy, which was announced at a packed Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting in Norristown, and “it is not the responsibility of the county or its employees to enforce federal immigration law.”
County workers who might be approached by ICE agents are directed to ask for supporting documents, such as a court order, and then notify their supervisor, who is to contact the county solicitor. The county will require a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena before providing information on any person to federal enforcement agents.
The policy, effective immediately, “reemphasizes our commitment to not collect or ask for any information related to immigration-status unless required by state or federal law,” Commissioners Neil Makhija and Jamila Winder, the two Democrats holding the majority on the three-person board, said in a statement.
The new policy arrives at a tumultuous moment, with President Donald Trump determined to punish jurisdictions that do not help enforce federal immigration law and ICE agents active in communities across the Philadelphia region.
In the last several weeks, more than 20 people have been arrested by ICE agents in Norristown, where one in three residents is Latino.
And Montgomery County was named on a Trump administration list of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions from which the president has threatened to withhold federal funding. (The list was removed from the Department of Homeland Security’s website within days of its initial release.)
“Any protections that are in place are better,” said Stephanie Vincent, an organizer with Community for Change Montgomery County, who attended the meeting and heard the new policy announced. “It closes a real loophole.”
ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Montgomery is the third-most-populous county in Pennsylvania, behind only Philadelphia and Allegheny, and employs about 3,000 people.
Last week, Montgomery County prison officials dropped their policy of holding immigrants wanted by ICE even after they have posted bail, a practice that enabled federal agents to arrest people who otherwise might have been freed.
That decision came 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 prison.
All those decisions fall against a larger background of local and national protests, including tensions in Los Angeles, around President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies.
Commissioner Thomas DiBello, the board’s lone Republican, said he had received a draft of the policy only Tuesday night and a final version on Wednesday morning.
At first glance it seems to follow the law, he said, but “there’s a few changes I need to look into.”
The policy states that it complies with all federal and state laws. And that county employees should not interfere with or attempt to instruct federal agents who are conducting enforcement operations.
However, the policy says, “no employee shall release any individual’s information — including name, work or home address, immigration status-related information, country of origin, program participation, appointment schedules — to any federal immigration agency without consultation with, and approval, by the county solicitor’s office.”
Employees of the courts, row offices, and the correctional facility may have additional policies in place, it noted.
The detainer decision in Montgomery County — officials said they had been working on it for weeks — follows an incident involving Andrea Lozano-Alanis, 31, who now faces deportation to Mexico.
She is being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Clearfield County, according to immigration advocates.
The county policy had been to hold those named in ICE detainers, which are agency-issued requests, for an additional four hours after they posted bail.
Now the Montgomery County prison will recognize only those warrants that have been approved and signed by a judge. The county now will hold people for up to 24 hours if it receives a judicial warrant.
Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.