South Carolina sheriff under fire for refusing to cooperate with ICE

U.S. House Representatives, who chair subcommittees of the U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee, are demanding answers from the Charleston County, South Carolina, sheriff in response to failure to comply with ICE detention requests.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis. sent a letter to Sheriff Christine Graziano regarding her refusal to cooperate with ICE. They also announced that they are investigating cases of local law enforcement agencies across the country refusing to cooperate with ICE.

They are referring to the federal immigration law’s 287(g) program, which allows ICE to assign certain state and local law enforcement officers to specific immigration officer functions under its supervision. ICE explains that the 287(g) program “enhances the safety and security of our nation’s communities” by allowing ICE officers to “work with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify and remove incarcerated noncitizen criminals who are subject to prior removal from the United States.” how they are released into society.”

ICE also argues that the arrest and removal of noncitizens “who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration law” are of paramount importance.

Graziano, who was elected sheriff in November 2020, terminated the county’s cooperation agreement with ICE on Jan. 5, 2021, after she was sworn in. Likewise, Harris County, Texas, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. did the same after he was elected in 2016, ending Texas’s largest county’s participation in the program in January 2017.

Local jurisdictions ending cooperative agreements with ICE over so-called sanctuary city policies are harming the arrest, detention and removal of some of the most violent criminals, ICE argues. Under the Biden-Harris administration, ICE Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner said sanctuary policies were harming Americans and noncitizens.

Some local jurisdictions have “reduced their cooperation with ICE, including refusing to comply with ICE detainer requests, even for noncitizens who have been convicted of serious felonies and pose an ongoing threat to public safety,” he said in a letter to Congress because of their so-called “sanctuary city” policy. “However, sanctuary policies may ultimately protect dangerous criminals who often target those same communities,” he said.

In addition to ending the sheriff’s office’s 287(g) agreement with ICE, Graziano’s office also refused to comply with at least 51 ICE detainer requests, according to ICE.

Among the requests was one reportedly involving “an illegal alien who was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal solicitation of a minor and then released back into the community,” Mace and Grothman said. “Because of your actions, ICE has declared Charleston County a ‘non-cooperative’ agency for refusing to detain criminal aliens long enough for ICE to take them into custody.”

As local jurisdictions across the country refused to cooperate with ICE, the agency removed detainees from 24,796 known criminals and released them into the United States, Lechleitner said in a recently released report. Data is from October 1, 2020 to July 22, 2024. Local authorities refused to grant 23,591 detention requests, he said.

As of July 21, 2024, “there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on the national ICE list, including ICE detainees as well as non-detainees. Of those, 435,719 are convicted felons and 226,847 have pending criminal charges,” Lechleitner said. This includes foreign national criminals convicted or charged with murder (14,914), sexual assault (20,061), assault (105,146), kidnapping (3,372) and commercial sex crimes, including sex trafficking (3 971).

The U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee has launched an investigation into why local jurisdictions are refusing to cooperate with ICE, arguing that it “puts local residents at risk.”

The committee asked Graziano to provide requested information about her office and ICE requests by November 10. If she does not comply, she will be summoned to court.

During Graziano’s tenure, 17 inmates died, prompting a federal investigation into “potential patterns of abuse at the county jail,” The Post and Courier reported. reported. During her tenure, there were more than twice as many deaths as there were four years earlier, according to the county coroner.

Graziano, who is running for re-election, called Mace a “liar” in a statement released to the media along with “reams of documents” about how the prison operates, The Post and Courier reported. “Just because she and her colleagues in Congress can’t solve our country’s federal immigration problem doesn’t mean they can make it mine,” Graziano said. She also accused Congress of failing to “do their job” and “lawmakers like (Mace) think their job is to force someone else to do their job. Not on my watch.

In response to Mace said“The delusion is outstanding. Graziano’s “dump” document took the liberty of releasing it to the press before our office CONFIRMED everything we said about her reckless, false and self-imposed policies. This is not an “abuse of power,” but a necessary intervention.”

Mace led the campaign to deport non-citizen criminals, introducing a bill that passed the House of Representatives. Among the 158 House Democrats who voted against it was Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, The Center Square reported.