Thanks to the work of advocates, as well as the Biden administration, just one sheriff’s office in all of Massachusetts continues to hold a harmful 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is the racist policy that allows local law enforcement to act as mass deportation agents.
But new litigation seeks to put a nail in that policy’s coffin. Civil rights attorneys are representing a group of commonwealth taxpayers who are seeking to invalidate the Barnstable County sheriff’s office agreement with ICE.
They’re challenging whether the Barnstable County sheriff’s office has the authority to enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE in the first place.
“Filed by Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) and Rights Behind Bars (RBB), today’s petition asserts that Massachusetts sheriffs’ offices—which are funded by state taxpayer dollars—have no authority to enter into 287(g) agreements with ICE, nor to carry out the activities contemplated by them, including arrest, interrogation, and transportation of immigrants,” the groups said.
“Under Massachusetts law, the powers of sheriffs are very tightly circumscribed,” said LCR Litigation Director Oren Sellstrom. “The state legislature has wisely refused to authorize Massachusetts sheriffs to enter into agreements with the federal government for immigration enforcement, in light of the many serious problems caused by this entanglement. Without that authority, the agreement and Sheriff Cummings’ ongoing expenditures under it are unlawful.”
Litigation previously brought on by LCR helped lead to Plymouth County voluntarily ending its 287(g) agreement last fall.
“In July 2021, Plymouth County Judge Daniel J. O’Shea ruled that the taxpayer lawsuit could proceed, calling into question the sheriff’s authority to enter into the agreement,” LCR said at the time. Earlier that same year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ordered ICE to end its 287(g) agreement with Bristol County. The secretary also ordered an end to the county’s immigration detention contract following allegations of horrific abuses against detained immigrants.
Immigrant families who live in counties where 287(g) contracts have been terminated have reported they’ve “been able to breathe easier,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported. Families have more reassurance that getting pulled over for something as minor as a broken taillight won’t eventually lead to deportation and family separation.
In Georgia, Gwinnett and Cobb counties’ sheriffs won on ending these terrible agreements. Since then, families have said “it’s a relief, that they can leave their homes with less stress, knowing they will be able to come back at the end of the day and have dinner with their family and see their kids,” Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights’ (GLAHR) Adelina Nicholls told the outlet.
287(g) agreements shouldn’t exist period, having resulted in “widespread” racial profiling in addition to family separation, the American Immigration Council said last year. The policy was also a favorite of disgraced former sheriff and noted racist Joe Arpaio.
“Use of the sheriff’s manpower and resources to conduct immigration enforcement represents an in-kind donation to ICE, over and above its congressional allocation,” said petitioner Wayne Bergeron. “It casts a shadow over a seasonal economy such as ours which relies on an immigrant workforce; and here on the other side of the jail’s walls, where people of color are already too easily maligned and mistreated.
“Barnstable’s 287(g) should be discontinued immediately, with resources recommitted to programs which do benefit our region,” he continued.