By Ben Orner / Broadcast version by Mary Kuhlman
Reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration

Since President Donald Trump took office early last year, his administration has ramped up enforcement of America’s immigration laws.

One part of that increase is a rise in detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that enforces immigration laws and deports unauthorized immigrants.

Detainers ask local, state and federal jails and prisons to hold suspected unauthorized immigrants for an additional 48 hours so ICE can pick them up and begin the deportation process.

In Trump’s first six months in office, ICE sent 38 percent more detainers to law enforcement agencies nationwide and 37 percent more detainers in Ohio, compared to President Barack Obama’s last six months. That’s according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

The Trump administration needs the help of local law enforcement for its crackdown on immigration, but complying with detainer requests is not required by law. Communities that do not comply are referred to as “sanctuaries.”

In Ohio, though, sanctuaries are hard to come by, as law enforcement regularly complies with ICE’s requests to pick up immigrants for deportation.

Data for Ohio

Through a hard-fought series of Freedom of Information Act requests and court victories, TRAC has compiled a database of every ICE detainer received by local law enforcement agencies across the nation for about the last 15 years.

TRAC’s records for Ohio are current through July 2017 and date back to November 2002. Since then, ICE requested the transfer of more than 27,000 undocumented immigrants from city jails, county jails and state and federal prisons in nearly every county in the state.

County jails received the majority of those detainers, accounting for 71 percent of the total.

The top county for detainers, Franklin, is Ohio’s most populous with more than 1.2 million residents. When adjusting for each county's population, Franklin is still first for detainers, but that is where the correlation ends.

The Clark County Jail, located in Ohio's 21st most populous county, received the second-most detainers. Fayette County, Ohio’s 74th-most populous county with just 29,000 residents, received the third-most detainers.

Some heavily-populated counties like Cuyahoga (2nd), Summit (4th), and Lucas (6th) received just the 59th, 55th and 58th most detainers, respectively.

ICE withheld most information about the detainers and the immigrants named in them. The agency released limited information that included the person’s gender and citizenship.

More than 63 percent of the immigrants on the detainers were originally from Mexico. Next came Guatemala at 9 percent, while 4 percent were from Honduras. Nearly 97 percent were male and only three percent were female.

One important piece of information that ICE included, though, was whether some detainers were refused. ICE provided outcomes for only about a third of the detainers sent to Ohio law enforcement agencies, but in more than 98 percent of those cases, ICE said the agencies did not refuse the detainer.

Bob Cornwell, the executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association, said it is common practice for county jails in Ohio to hand over unauthorized immigrants to ICE.

“Policies have remained fairly consistent over the years,” he said.

Portage County Sheriff David Doak agrees with Cornwell, and said his deputies and correctional officers are instructed to comply with ICE. His jail received 56 detainers and did not refuse at least 30, according to TRAC.

Trump’s Increased Crackdown

One byproduct of illegal immigration Doak sees firsthand is drug trafficking, particularly coming across the Mexican border with the United States.

“Trump took issue with that politically,” he said. “He made a stand with that, and once he committed to it, he was kind of obligated to follow through. And we’re beginning to see the extent of that.”

“It’s caused jail overcrowding, deaths, the list could go on,” he said. “(Drugs have) been coming across the border for years, and law enforcement has taken a pretty tough stand.”

Immigrants'-rights groups point out that the majority of people who are undocumented are not drug dealers, and that they are detained for a variety of reasons.

Doak also expects ICE to pay more attention in rural areas where law enforcement has not had much interaction with unauthorized immigrants, like Portage County.

“I can almost assure you if we picked someone up now and called ICE,” Doak said, “they would probably come and get them without delay.”

The sheriff’s office actually has no official policies regarding ICE or unauthorized immigrants, because of its irregular interactions with them.

“It’s not something in the past that was earth-shaking,” he said.

With Trump’s increased crackdown, though, the sheriff’s office is looking into implementing policies specifically related to ICE and unauthorized immigrants. Some policies Doak’s office is drafting would decide whether to hand over unauthorized immigrants who are witnesses of crimes and whether the Portage County Jail should begin to track the citizenship status of its inmates.

Personal Versus Professional

Though Doak, a Democrat, is committed to upholding the law by complying with ICE detainers, he is sympathetic when he talks about the families of the immigrants handed over to ICE for deportation.

“I just morally think that it’s wrong to split families up, take children or parents and deport them and split the family up,” he said. “On the other hand, those folks know that when they cross the border illegally, there’s consequences to that, and they have to take a little bit of ownership in that.”

As the Trump administration increases its crackdown on illegal immigration and law enforcement agencies in Ohio try to keep up, one thing is clear: If an unauthorized immigrant is taken into custody by a law enforcement agency or is sitting in a cell at a jail or prison, their days in the U.S. are likely numbered.

“If they were here illegally,” Doak said, “we would probably be contacting ICE.”

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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An Eau Claire resident is speaking out about how federal cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could affect his life and his family's.

Oliver Winn and his parents all live with disabilities. He said Medicaid has allowed him to have surgeries that have improved his quality of life to such a degree, he no longer needs a wheelchair. It also helps him pay for medication which would otherwise cost $5,000 a month. Winn described the forthcoming federal cuts to Medicaid and SNAP as "terrifying."

"It's going to change a lot of things for a lot of people, and I'm concerned for myself, I'm concerned for my family, my community," Winn explained. "Everyone is going to be affected by this and it's a very scary time to be living through."

It's estimated more than 276,000 people in Wisconsin could lose their Medicaid coverage and another 90,000 risk losing their SNAP benefits over the next decade.

One in eight people in Wisconsin depends on SNAP to help pay for groceries. Winn is one of them. Although he currently works overnight shifts, he noted he still needs SNAP to afford food for him and his child. Before he had Medicaid and SNAP, Winn added his high medical debts meant he struggled to keep up with food and housing expenses, which led him to become homeless.

"Because there's no way to balance trying to feed yourself, trying to pay off this debt and still have access to health care and rent," Winn stressed. "It's impossible, and I wish that the people writing these bills and enacting these policies could get a taste of the life that they're creating for other people."

Along with federal cuts, the Trump administration is implementing stricter work requirements for these programs in an effort to curb what it calls "welfare dependency." More than 45% of SNAP recipients in Wisconsin are in working families and the majority of Medicaid recipients in the state are part of the workforce.

Winn argued the rhetoric suggesting beneficiaries are lazy and unmotivated is not based in reality.

"We do and want to work," Winn emphasized. "Almost everyone I know is on Medicaid. My friends, my family that are capable of working are the hardest workers I know, because we have to work so hard to scrape out ends meet."


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The mayor of Lancaster, Pennsylvania is voicing concerns about the state budget delay, warning it could affect the city's more than 58,000 residents.

Lawmakers missed the June 30 deadline for the fourth year in a row.

Danene Sorace, mayor of Lancaster, said she is closely monitoring both the state budget and the federal transportation, housing, and urban development budget coming before Congress today, noting both have significant implications for the city.

"There's been a significant reduction in federal funds that are coming to the state," Sorace pointed out. "How the state, in a divided House and Senate, reconcile these reductions in federal funding for Medicaid and address the other issues at hand, specifically equitable school funding, is yet to be determined."

Gov. Josh Shapiro said the state budget talks are making progress and expects a deal soon.

Sorace added since the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" has passed and the state must deal with reduced federal funding, Lancaster will likely experience losses in health care access. She explained the city is fortunate to have strong hospitals and community health systems, which is not always the case in rural areas.

"I think that long term, the impacts are going to be potentially more damaging," Sorace observed. "For our rural brethren in other parts of Pennsylvania and across the country, we're more concerned about their access to health care."

The new law slashes Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding by $186 billion over the next decade, adding stricter work and reporting rules, threatening benefits for many Pennsylvanians.

Sorace emphasized food insecurity was already rising before the cuts and she now expects even more demand at local food pantries.

"Our nonprofit community is trying to figure out what the state is going to do to help fill those gaps," Sorace stressed. "Of course, we're very concerned about food insecurity, especially during the summer months, when kids aren't in school and don't have breakfast and lunch always available to them."

Sorace added she recently joined more than 200 mayors at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors to discuss key issues, including housing and public safety. She underscored cities across the country are making progress on public safety, highlighting Lancaster's achievement of its lowest homicide rate since 1983.


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While cuts to food support programs and Medicaid gained attention as the debate over the budget bill went on, there is also a long-term likelihood it will result in automatic spending cuts to Medicare.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the reconciliation bill is projected to add more than $3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. If the estimate is accurate, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act would require the executive branch to enact automatic spending cuts, including 4% annual cuts to Medicare starting in January, translating to around $500 billion in cuts over 10 years.

John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, said a spring survey found Tennesseans were broadly opposed to cuts.

"We ask about Tennesseans' willingness to support cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veterans, etc.," Geer outlined. "And the truth of the matter is that Tennesseans are opposed to cuts in any of these programs. And it doesn't matter your partisan stripe, whether you're a liberal Democrat or a conservative MAGA-ite, you don't want to see these programs cut."

More than 1.5 million Tennesseans depend on Medicare. Congressional action would be needed to avoid automatic cuts, likely requiring a 60-vote majority in the Senate.

While funding to research under the National Institutes of Health would not be subjected to automatic cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency has already fired 2,500 researchers at the NIH and canceled more than 800 research grants. Geer's polling found more than 70% of Tennesseans oppose cutting funding for basic research.

"We asked a battery of questions about cutting research at universities, at hospitals, for drug discovery, etc., and again, there's partisan differences," Geer reported. "The MAGA folks, so to speak, are happy to do the cutting but the rest of the state has concerns."

The poll found 73% of Tennesseans support research at teaching hospitals and 66% supported research at universities.


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