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.


get more stories like this via email

Like others across the country, many Missouri families struggle with the cost of child care, and state lawmakers are proposing some relief.

Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, serves Webster County, where the average child care cost for a family with two young children is more than $12,000 a year a year. Kelly has introduced legislation to create a state child care tax credit for parents who qualify for the federal child care tax credit. As with the federal credit, it requires having earned income.

Kelly pointed out no one who's paying attention to "everyday reality" can miss the fact young families are struggling.

"Nobody wants to give a handout, we only want to invest and give a hand up," Kelly stated. "This is money that people have earned, and we're putting it back in their pocket, once we can verify that they're making responsible choices, for their family and for their businesses."

Under House Bill 1335, individuals earning up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000 would be eligible for a tax credit toward their child care expenses. The amount would be $1,800 for children up to age two, and $1,200 for kids ages three to six, for a maximum of two children per family.

Kelly added the credit is nontransferable and nonrefundable, features which can make tax credits more expensive. She explained her bill allows parents to choose their child care provider, who does not have to be licensed, but it does include limitations.

"You cannot have your spouse qualify as a day care provider," Kelly noted. "You can't have an older child qualify. It's all very tightly run; it's all very accountable."

Kelly stressed she supports the governor's child care tax credits included in House Bill 870, sponsored by Rep. Brenda Shields, R-St. Joseph.

The credits in Shields' bill would go to child care providers, corporations subsidizing their workers' child care expenses, and donors to child care centers, whereas the credits in Kelly's bill would go directly to families. Kelly feels combining the tax credits in both bills would benefit people "in every corner of the state."

The Iowa Legislature's powerful Ways and Means Committee has advanced a measure to eliminate the state income tax. The move is the latest in a series of votes to reduce taxes in Iowa.

Senate Study Bill 1126 would lower Iowa's income-tax rate to flat 2.5% in five years.

Then in 2030, the income tax would be eliminated completely. This comes just after Iowa passed a 3.9% flat tax last year.

Executive Director of nonprofit, nonpartisan Common Good Iowa Anne Discher said - given that the state income tax accounts for 50% of the Iowa's budget - eliminating it would decimate crucial public services.

"State aid to public schools is 43% of our state budget," said Discher. "We could entirely eliminate state aid for our entire public school system and it wouldn't be enough to cover the kind of income tax cuts that we're talking about. So, the kinds of service cuts really would be draconian."

Republicans have said this bill, and the flat tax signed into law last year, are designed to give Iowans broad tax relief and also make the state attractive to businesses that may be considering locating in Iowa.

Discher pointed out that Iowa is already facing a revenue shortfall due to last year's tax cut.

She added that eliminating the income tax revenue would affect mental health, safety and other social service programs in Iowa. But she warned that it could have other consequences, too.

"It is certainly a shot across the bow against racial equity, as well," said Discher. "We are further advantaging the wealthiest Iowans - further advantaging, as a group, white Iowans. Iowans of color are over-represented at the lower end of the income distribution, because of longstanding discrimination in housing, education and employment."

The bill moves next to the full Senate.

Critics of a proposed pay raise for state workers said it barely keeps up with inflation and is not enough to alleviate Kentucky's long-standing government workforce crisis.

House Bill 444 would use $89 million for a 6% raise, despite having $200 million already set aside.

Dustin Pugel, executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, explained over the past two decades, the state's public workforce has shrunk, despite a growing population and increasing demand for public services.

"We've heard the last couple of sessions, horror stories really from people and child welfare and public defenders about how their caseloads have ballooned," Pugel reported. "That just creates a vicious cycle; when people are overworked and underpaid, they leave."

Last year the General Assembly passed an 8% across the board increase for state workers, and funneled extra cash to social workers, family support staff, public defenders, and the state police. Pugel pointed out while any raise is better than none, the legislation would still leave state workers making far less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they were in 2011.

Nationwide, pay increases for state and local government employees haven't kept pace with inflation or those of private workers, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

Pugel noted a few years ago, when residents called local agencies for assistance with SNAP benefits, Medicaid, or unemployment insurance benefits, they spent hours waiting on the phone.

"Even now, when you call the department for community based services, you're likely to be on hold for 20, 30, 40 minutes before someone picks up the phone," Pugel observed. "About a third of folks who call in just end up hanging up before anyone helps them."

According to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, even with last year's raise, state government vacancies remain high.