Keller jail to partner with ICE for inmate immigration checks – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

The Mayor of Keller says the city is poised to become the first in Tarrant County to formally partner with ICE inside its jail.

The move will help keep the community safe, according to Mayor Armin Mizani, but some critics have concerns about immigrants’ rights.

The news went out on Thursday, when Mizani shared online that at the city’s next council meeting, leaders intended to partner with ICE inside their jail through the federal agency’s 287(g) program.

“It’s an opportunity for the city of Keller to do something that frankly, we’ve already been doing,” said Mizani. “For the last couple years, any time someone gets booked in our jail we go through a background search and determine their legal status and inform the appropriate authorities.”

Mizani said the move would make the process official, with the federal government training some Keller officers to check the immigration status of jail inmates.

The partnership would make Keller the first city in Tarrant County and the largest in Texas to enter the 287(g) program, the mayor told NBC 5.

“It just enhances public safety,” said Mizani. “And not just for the community of Keller, but the Keller jail actually services some of the surrounding communities.”

“My hope is that other cities that do have a jail will be able to start implementing this type of partnership,” he continued.

The Tarrant County Jail has already been participating in the 287(g) program.

Some immigrant rights advocates had concerns about Keller’s plan.

“We believe that it is the federal government’s job to do immigration, it is not the local government,” said Rogelio Meixueiro, a community organizer with Sunrise Movement Tarrant County. “I think it is a very scary precedent.”

Opponents said they believed the partnership could hurt the immigrant community’s trust in law enforcement.

“I think there’s great danger when we are touching into these politics of fear,” said Meixueiro. “I think the priority should be in making sure that everybody in our city has access to the things that they need.”

NBC 5 asked Keller’s mayor for a response to those concerns.

“At the end of the day, public safety is not a national issue, it’s not a federal issue, this is an issue that, when crimes are committed, they happen at the local level,” said Mizani.

The mayor said he believed the move would pass unanimously at the city’s next council meeting on August 5. We reached out to the Keller Police Department for a response to the plan, we’re waiting to hear back.