Michigan sheriffs: We're too overwhelmed to help ICE round up immigrants

LANSING – For many sheriff’s departments in Michigan, enforcing federal civil immigration laws is beyond their legal authority, though they remain willing to assist federal agencies in many cases, officials say.

According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website, while arrests nationally were down in 2024, they are expected to rise sharply in response to new policies enacted by the Trump administration, and detentions are already up slightly. 

Frequently, federal law enforcement agencies rely on local sheriff and police departments to house detainees awaiting a hearing. 

There also is a policy that allows local officers to participate in enforcement of federal immigration laws under so-called 287(g) agreements, which let some federal duties be delegated to state or local officers. 

That has generated controversy over the extent to which local law enforcement agencies should cooperate with federal policies that might not be popular in their communities.

Matt Saxton, the executive director of the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association, said, “We are a northern border state and we definitely have illegal immigration right here in our state, whether that’s coming across the river from Windsor, or up in St Clair County, or even coming across the Upper Peninsula along the river at the eastern end of the state.” 

Some Michigan agencies, such as the Sanilac County Sheriff’s Department and the Grand Rapids Police Department, have made public statements that a lack of resources prevents them from working more closely with ICE and saying it isn’t their responsibility to enforce federal laws. 

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Other departments take a different view.

“I don’t think there will be many, if any, law enforcement agencies that would sign up for handling full enforcement of immigration laws. It’s not their job,” Saxton said.

“Local law enforcement and sheriffs have to concentrate on the duties that they are responsible for and the citizens they serve,” he said.

Mike Bitnar is the Chippewa County sheriff.

“We are short-handed and can’t keep up with our own work right now, so I highly doubt that we would agree to go out and work with ICE. The federal agencies in this county do not have a need for us to assist them because they have plenty of agents,” he said.

There are different types of agreements that local agencies can sign with ICE. One involves housing immigration detainees on behalf of the federal government. Several sheriff’s departments in Michigan have this type of agreement, including Chippewa County.

According to Bitnar, the county has been housing detainees for 22 years, and he considers that routine.

“It’s just an everyday thing. Sometimes we house a few and sometimes a bunch. We just house detainees while they are waiting for court,” he said.

Saxton explained how housing detainees works: “There are several sheriffs’ offices that have intergovernmental support agreements with ICE.” One is Calhoun County, where he was previously sheriff.

Calhoun County has a 600-bed jail and averaged 160-170 immigration detainees a day.

“We had an agreement to house ICE detainees for the better part of 25 years,” he said. Other counties with such agreements include Monroe and St Clair. 

In Chippewa County, Bitnar said, “Right now we have maybe 40 detainees in our jail, which holds a maximum of 178. Since we generally hold only 80-100 local prisoners at a time, we have a lot of extra room.”

He said the number has risen a little lately, but “we never ship out our local prisoners to another facility or pay someone else to hold them just so that we can have ICE detainees,” he said. 

The county’s arrangement with ICE doesn’t strain his jail’s resources or cost county taxpayers anything because of federal reimbursement, he said.

The other type of agreement – the 287(g) program – allows local officers to carry out operations, such as serving warrants, on behalf of ICE. 

Such arrangements, Saxton said, are separate from housing agreements.

“I don’t know of any sheriff’s office in Michigan that has signed such an agreement with ICE and is doing hands-on immigration enforcement,” he said. 

“That’s not a sheriff’s responsibility – that’s a responsibility of the federal government,” Saxton said. 

According to the ICE website, the program enhances collaboration with state and local agencies. A recent executive order by the Trump administration encourages the expanded use of such agreements.

There are three options with such agreements, Saxton said: One is to serve a warrant and take someone into custody; another is for a jail officer to act as an ICE agent within the jail; and a third as a task force officer to do immigration enforcement work in the field.

Saxton said he doesn’t think those arrangements will spread in Michigan. 

Even so, illegal immigration is a concern for local agencies, he said, noting that some sheriffs have expressed worries about an increase in crime caused by undocumented immigrants.

“If there were fewer individuals coming into this country illegally, many coming in undetected, I would think the crime rate would decline,” he said. 

Bitnar, of Chippewa County, agreed. “Illegals have always crossed the St. Mary’s River from Canada into our county, but not at a high rate. It’s not like the southern border where there’s thousands of people rushing across.”

“There’s some parts of our county where you could toss a baseball into Canada. But it isn’t rampant,” he said.

This article was originally by the Capital News Service