A court ruling allowed members of the Bucks County Sheriff\u2019s Office to work with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a task force model.<\/p>\n
The decision allows select deputies within the office to utilize a federal immigration database. Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran described the task force as a \u201ccommon-sense initiative\u201d that allows his deputies to identify individuals who are in the country illegally who were taken into custody based on existing criminal charges and outstanding warrants in Bucks County.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s court ruling is a victory for the law-abiding residents of Bucks County and a validation of a common-sense approach to public safety which fully leverages partnerships and resources to keep our communities safe,\u201d Harran said. \u201cThis decision affirms our ability to use this simple tool to ensure individuals who commit crimes in our county are held fully accountable \u2013 regardless of their immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harran\u2019s announcement of the plan to work with ICE back in April led to considerable backlash. Harran defended the plan during an appearance on NBC10 @Issue and Battleground Politics with Lauren Mayk.<\/a> During the discussion, former Philadelphia councilmember Maria Qui\u00f1ones-S\u00e1nchez spoke out against law enforcement working with ICE, referring to it as a \u201cvery slippery slope.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody wants dangerous people out. But when you\u2019re not providing due process and you have limited resources\u2026that\u2019s very, very dangerous,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not going to make us safer. When people are hiding. When undocumented folks cannot go to work safely and help the economies of Bucks County, Franklin County, you can go across Pennsylvania. Without those immigrants, some who are undocumented, Pennsylvania\u2019s economy would crash. So we have to be really careful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Harran then defended his efforts to work with ICE, stating the task force would only go after those who were charged with crimes in the Bucks County region.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is so bad about making the arrests, which we do now, but now, afterwards, ship them out so they can\u2019t commit crimes tomorrow? Because our courts, our judicial system, our prisons are packed,\u201d Harran said. \u201cThey cannot hold the amount of people. So why not save the U.S. taxpayer dollar and ship them back to the country they came from? Only those people that have already been charged with a crime. I\u2019m not talking about somebody owning a pizza shop or working a landscape company. That\u2019s not who we\u2019re talking about here.\u201d<\/p>\n While Harran\u2019s application to participate in the task force program was approved by ICE in May, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Make the Road Pennsylvania, NAACP Bucks County, and the BuxMont Unitarian Universalists filed a lawsuit in September to fight the plan<\/a>, claiming the sheriff made the move illegally and that the decision should have been made by the Bucks County Commissioners.<\/p>\n “The sheriff does not have the authority. That decision has to be made by the county commissioners and that did not happen. He did his own thing,” Danitria Sherman, of the ACLU, told NBC10 in September.<\/p>\n Other community groups and leaders in Bucks County spoke out against the plan as well.<\/p>\n