Wayne County Sheriff Napoleon not honoring ICE Requests

WC_sheriff_memoThe Detroit Free Press reports that:

Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon is making it clear the county will not honor requests made by federal immigration officials to hold some immigrant inmates past their release date.

The move has upset officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who sometimes will ask county jails to hold inmates past their release date if they’re an immigrant that ICE wants to detain for possible deportation.

But Napoleon strongly defended his county policy, saying it gels with the law, court rulings, and with what other sheriffs of big counties in the U.S. are doing. Napoleon, who leads the biggest jail in Michigan, said he cooperates with ICE, but will only hold an inmate past his or her release date if the county gets a warrant from an independent judge or magistrate — not ICE itself.

“We’re not going to hold you just because ICE wants to hold you for a couple of days, we can’t do that,” Napoleon told the Free Press. “That’s illegal.”

Read on for more.