Bucks County’s ICE partnership has ended, sheriff confirms

Bucks County Sheriff Danny Ceisler has canceled his office’s agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement, Ceisler announced Jan. 14.

Bucks County’s new sheriff had campaigned on this topic and said he’d formally end county participation in the controversial ICE program this month.

Following his Jan. 5 swearing-in ceremony, Ceisler confirmed that he’s placed a moratorium on the 287g program. Ceisler said Jan. 14 that he’d completed the paperwork to withdraw from the federal force-multiplier program earlier in the day.

With the ending of the 287g agreement, Bucks County would return to its prior relationship with ICE, Ceisler said, citing what he described as damage that expanded immigration enforcement does to broader criminal justice goals.

“Immigrants are our neigbors, they are our friends, they are taxpayers and they deserve the protection of law enforcement in this community,” Ceisler said. “From the day this office signed up to have deputies perform immigration enforcement, immigrants began living in even greater fear than they were before.”

In addition to ending the formal agreement, the new sheriff said he has instructed deputies not to ask witnesses and victims about their immigration status when they appear at county court.

Former Sheriff Fred Harran, who lost his bid for reelection in November, and 16 of his officers had been trained and deputized last year to act as federal ICE agents to enforce immigration law while performing their county duties under an agreement that Harran authorized.

While the county’s 287g participation is ending, the lawsuit that greenlighted it is continuing: The ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Community Justice Project are appealing a Bucks County court ruling in Superior Court on behalf of several community groups. The lawsuit and its appeal argue that a county sheriff doesn’t have unilateral authority under state law to enter into a contract with the federal government without the approval of the county commissioners.

Nearly three weeks after Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Trauger ruled in favor of Harran last October, the sheriff lost his reelection campaign to Ceisler, who opposed the agreement.

Harran confirmed that he had never fully implemented the 287g plan. His office apparently never received the necessary equipment to implement the program, and only had access to the ICE warrant and detainer database.