‘Very shameful’: Advocates call for reversal of Louisville’s immigration detainer policy
LOUISVILLE, Ky. —
One year after Louisville reinstated federal immigration detainers at the order of Mayor Craig Greenberg, advocates are criticizing the policy and calling for its reversal.
“When this policy came into place, the mayor told the city that he believed it was going to impact fewer than 100 people per year,” said Amber Duke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. “A year later, we know that the impact has been far broader than that.”
Federal records obtained by the ACLU of Kentucky through an open records request show that since the policy change, 538 people on detainer holds at the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections were released to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Of those, 157 individuals were later removed from the United States.
Duke raised concerns about the policy’s financial cost to Louisville taxpayers, its role in creating additional jail time for inmates in an overcrowded facility, and its connection to detainees being sent to detention centers with reportedly inhumane conditions.
“Folks have died in those facilities, did not receive proper medical care and are not being fed well,” she said. “It is a very shameful part of Louisville’s history that some of the legacy of this moment is that the policy decision that was made helped funnel people into this system.”
The mayor was also pressured by the federal government when he reestablished the policy in August of last year, including threats of withholding federal funds.
His office defended the decision on Thursday, stating that the change brought Louisville back into compliance with federal law and avoided large-scale Immigration and Customs Enforcement deployment seen in cities like Chicago and Minneapolis.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said, “After weighing the very real risks on all sides, the Mayor continues to believe this decision offers the best path to keeping tens of thousands of immigrants who call Louisville home out of harm’s way. It was a difficult decision, but in a no-win situation, the Mayor’s responsibility is to pursue the course that protects the greatest number of residents.”
Duke expressed skepticism about the administration’s claims.
“I don’t agree with the Greenberg administration that we can say for certain, because this policy change went into effect, we, you know, prevented X, Y and Z from happening. We didn’t fight back at all. We didn’t attempt as a city to stand up and say, no, we are going to keep the policies in place that folks in this community fought for, that our Metro Council passed, and that the Trump administration previously said were not sanctuary policies,” Duke said.
The ACLU is now urging Greenberg to overturn the policy and implement a public website to track the number of ICE detainees at LMDC.
The full analysis, supporting data and additional information are available here.