Lancaster County officials stand by ICE despite petition to end 287(g) agreements

Republicans in Lancaster County will uphold their decision to partner with ICE despite growing nationwide and local pushback. 

Officials with Lancaster County refused to end their relationships with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) despite residents delivering a petition with 2,700 signatures demanding that District Attorney Heather Adams and Sheriff Chris Leppler terminate their 287(g) agreements with the federal agency.

These 287(g) agreements, which allow local law enforcement officials to carry out immigration enforcement such as detaining immigrants and making arrests, have come under intense scrutiny across Pennsylvania in recent weeks after federal agents shot and killed two Minneapolis residents.

“Back in August, Sheriff Leppler was kind enough to give me and two of my fellow constituents a meeting about our concern with the 287(g) Task Force agreement,” Valerie Shenk, a nurse at Lancaster General Health, said at the Lancaster County Prison Board meeting on Thursday. 

“ I do think we’ve all seen that not only in Minneapolis, but all across the country, things have escalated, laws are being broken, there’s violent tactics. I would absolutely, as a nurse, advocate for all my patients, do what Alex Pretti did even knowing the consequences now.” 

Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, was killed by federal agents last month as he was trying to defend a protester who was shoved to ground. 

Shenk, who helped organize the petition, alongside dozens of other Lancaster County residents packed the Lancaster County Prison Board meeting to confront Adams’ and Leppler’s agreements with ICE. 

She added, “ We just want to know that law enforcement is keeping us safe, and I really believe the 287(g) task force agreement is eroding the trust between law enforcement officers and citizens making it less safe for both.”

Adams and Leppler, as well as Republican County Commissioners Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino, brushed aside the comments and concerns residents made about ICE throughout the meeting. 

“ I think there’s a lot of misrepresentation or misunderstanding to what we’re doing,” Leppler said at the end of the meeting. “Our core responsibility is to the county code, to the court, and to our primary responsibilities. That’s what we do as a sheriff’s office. We are not pulling additional resources or have anybody assigned full-time to ICE.”

Adams declined to comment at the end of the prison board meeting, but claimed that there is misinformation about her office’s relationship with ICE. Instead of speaking with reporters after the meeting, her office promised to release a statement about the ICE agreement next week.

Parsons claimed that the historic decrease in homicides across Lancaster, and the rest of the country, are happening due to increased immigration enforcement even though multiple studies suggest that a decrease in crime has been the trend since 2022. 

“ If you do some research, there is no other county in the country that I could find of over 500,000 people that had only four criminal homicides,” Parsons said.  Homicide rates are dropping across the country. I think in part because of immigration enforcement, and that’s part of the reason it’s happening.”

Earlier this month, Bucks County Sheriff Danny Ceisler told The Keystone that terminating his county’s 287(g) agreement with ICE is about restoring trust with immigrant communities. 

 ”Nine percent of our population are immigrants with some sort of status who were afraid to call 911, who were afraid to report crime, afraid to come into our courthouse and testify, which hurt public safety, not just for immigrants, but for our entire community,” Ceisler said.