U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a new agreement with the Utah Department of Corrections.
It gives corrections the power to issue detainers on people currently in state prison without legal status. This means when an individual without legal status is set to be released, ICE will be notified so the agency can take that person into custody.
“We have a long-standing relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that dates back several years, even more than a decade,” said Glen Mills, director of communications and government relations for the Utah Department of Corrections. “So this really just formalizes the work that we've been doing.”
Most immigrants in Utah state prisons without legal status already have ICE detainers, Mills said. This means they are already on the federal government’s radar. That’s the case for roughly 4.6% of the entire population of Utah state prisons, according to Mills. For those with detainers, “it's going to be business as usual.”
But immigrants in the prisons without legal status who do not already have a detainer might now see one lodged against them. Certain officers will be trained to issue those detainers and coordinate with ICE on those cases.
It’s called the Warrant Service Officer model, and will apply at the Utah State Correctional Facility and the Central Utah Correctional Facility.
The agreement comes as the 287(g) program expands nationwide as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement priorities. There are now three such active agreements in Utah. Washington County signed onto two different models in March.
The Warrant Service Officer model is newer and less studied than the other types of 287(g) agreements, which have been tied to racial profiling in states like Arizona and North Carolina.
Brittney Nystrom, executive director of the ACLU of Utah and a former immigration attorney, wonders how state and local agencies benefit by partnering with ICE.
“This is not their mission to muddle into the incredibly complicated world of immigration law,” she said.
ICE will not compensate the Department of Corrections for its participation. But Mills said working with other agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Marshals Service helps them all do their jobs better.
“Those that come into our country illegally and victimize our citizens, we want to send a strong message that that will not be tolerated,” he said.
Still, Nystrom said the community might not differentiate between ICE and the state Department of Corrections if they know the agencies work together.
“It could be that the Utah State Prison, just being seen as part of a deportation machine, could reduce public trust in law enforcement generally,” she said.
She said officers must receive comprehensive training to ensure they follow immigration law. The ACLU of Utah, she said, will “keep monitoring to ensure that there are no improper deprivations of liberty in the name of immigration enforcement.”
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
