A joint report by attorneys from NIJC, American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, National Immigration Law Center, and Southern Poverty Law Center, Assumption of Risk: Legal Liabilities for Local Governments that Choose to Enforce Federal Immigration Laws, describes the legal liabilities local governments face when they honor ICE requests, known as “detainers,” to hold individuals past the completion of their criminal custody until immigration agents take them into administrative custody.
This report:
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Outlines the constitutional and legal framework governing ICE detainers
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Places the detainers programs in historical context
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Describes the legally defective ways the Trump and Obama administrations have attempted to package these practices, including the Secure Communities Program, the Priority Enforcement Program, the March 2017 detainer policy, the “Gualtieri memo” proposing the 287(g) program and detention contracts as work-arounds, and the use of “Basic Ordering Agreements”
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Addresses the non-legal, moral and ethical costs that arise when local police take on federal immigration enforcement