Hennepin County sheriff says she’s had ‘healthy’ conversations with Homan on ICE drawdown
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Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt says she has had “healthy” conversations with Tom Homan, the White House official in charge of the Minnesota immigration enforcement surge.
Homan said Wednesday that he is drawing down the number of federal agents in Minnesota by 700. He said that would bring the total number of federal immigration agents in the state to about 2,000.
Homan said an “unprecedented” number of Minnesota counties are communicating with the Department of Homeland Security, allowing ICE to detain people who are in the country unlawfully when they are in county jails.
Witt told NPR’s Meg Anderson that if ICE has a signed judicial warrant for a person in her jail, her officers honor that. But ICE often doesn’t have a signed warrant, so the jail is required by law to release people.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office does not honor administrative detainers, where ICE asks a jail to hold someone without a warrant signed by a judge, Witt told NPR. But she said she is considering notifying ICE when they release someone who is the subject of one of those detainers.
“If that were to change — and that’s an if, right — you’re going to have to show me how it's going to make Hennepin County residents safer, and you’re going to have to actually act good on what you say,” Witt said.
— NPR
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