Law enforcement officers gathered at the White House Thursday to express their displeasure after a US Federal Court in California issued a permanent injunction blocking ICE from issuing detainer requests under their “Secure Communities” program.
The ruling prevents ICE from making detainer requests to states that have not expressly authorized their local law enforcement agencies to make arrests for deportation purposes in state law.
Tarrant County Texas Sheriff, Bill Waybourn spoke out against the courts decision, “Drilling down just a little bit in Tarrant County, Texas, it's the 15th largest county in the nation.”
“This morning we had forty two hundred inmates. Out of that 7 percent where illegal aliens. And they were being held for such offenses as murder, sexual assault of children. There was about 70 of them. And so and there were robbers in there and kidnappers and people who committed arson and people who were DWI.
And out of that, you know, you think about that. If we returned them with this radical ruling out of California, where you have a federal judge making law for the nation or attempting to, it will put our communities in jeopardy. Of those people that we have in custody, we know for a fact that 72 percent of them are repeat offenders,” he continued.
“So if we have to turn them loose or they get released, they're coming back to your neighborhood and my neighborhood. These drunks will run over your children and they will run over my children. And if that happens, I know that you will want, and certainly I would want for you, the full force of the law and immigration (ICE) is part of that full force.”
According to ICE, the Secure Communities program is responsible for 70% of all ICE arrests.
The decision applies to ICE detainers issued out of the Central District of California, which sends out detainer requests to police departments in 43 states, Guam and Washington, D.C.