Hudson County Won’t Help ICE Flag Jailed Immigrants Under 287(G)

HUDSON COUNTY, NJ — Hudson County has severed a controversial memorandum of agreement with ICE, ending the Hudson County Correctional Facility’s ties with the federal immigration agency’s Section 287(g) program.

On Friday, civil rights activists in North Jersey celebrated Hudson County officials’ decision to terminate the county’s participation in the voluntary ICE program, which helped the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to “flag” any arrested foreign-born individuals brought to the jail for potential deportation.

Under the memorandum of agreement, the county does not have to give any specified period of notice to ICE prior to relieving corrections officers of 287(g) duties. Department of Corrections leadership will address any concerns related to the change with ICE, but they expect the change can be made “without issue” immediately, Hudson County officials said.

“In a county where nearly half of all residents are immigrants, participation in 287(g) exposed our neighbors to the risk of being swept up in the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign and endangered everyone here,” said Andrea Long, a lead organizer of the grassroots organization Hudson for All and the donor relations manager for the ACLU of New Jersey.

“We’re grateful that the freeholders realized how serious of a threat 287(g) posed to our community, and we need other counties to follow Hudson’s example,” Long added.

According to the ACLU-NJ, three other counties in the state – Cape May, Monmouth, and Salem – currently have 287(g) agreements with ICE.

A Hudson County spokesperson said that under the county’s former agreement with ICE, one county corrections officer on each of the three duty shifts at the Hudson County Corrections and Rehabilitation Center was trained and tasked with “flagging” potential deportee subjects via an ICE computer system.

Efforts to end the 287(g) agreement in Hudson County started on a large scale in June 2016. Local organizations that opposed the county’s participation have included the ACLU of New Jersey, the Alliance for Immigrant Justice, American Friends Service Committee, First Friends New York New Jersey, Hudson For All and ACLU People Power.

The county most recently renewed the memorandum of agreement with the Obama Administration in July of 2016. However, the Trump Administration ended the Priorities Enforcement Program (PEP) element of the Secure Communities Program in January of 2017, sweeping away the PEP categories of distinction for serious offenses for ICE flagging, Hudson County spokesperson James Kennelly said.

“In response, the county formulated a local policy for its corrections officers to follow, directing them only to flag foreign born arrestees who followed a strictly defined set of offenses mirroring the former PEP standards beginning in February 2018,” Kennelly said. “The county was legally entitled under the memorandum of agreement to do so and New Jersey ICE did not object to the policy.”

The end of the agreement with ICE won’t prevent immigration officers from going to the jail and screening inmates to determine their status, and the county jail will continue to house immigration detainees under a separate agreement with ICE, Kennelly said.

• See related article: Maggots, Squalor For ICE Detainees At 'Inhumane' NJ Jails, Alarming Report Claims

Last week, Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise and County Director of Corrections Ron Edwards sent a letter to ICE notifying the federal agency of its decision. In the end, it wasn’t any federal policy – either the Obama or Trump administrations – that spurred Hudson County’s choice on 287(g), DeGise said.

“After a year under the new state bail reform policy, the number of arrestees coming to the correctional center has plummeted,” DeGise said. “The facility was built in the 1990’s to hold up to 2000 inmates. Today, our regular inmate population is about 600 — and that number could well drop to 300 or less as a result of state bail reform in the very near term. This change has reduced all our arrestee intakes, including those of foreign birth, especially during the times when ICE especially leans on our corrections officers to do 287(g) work, to a comparative trickle. ICE personnel should now be able to carry out this work without any impact on public safety.”

DeGise added:

“There was unfortunately a great deal of confusion about our very limited role in 287(g) but ultimately after a year to review its operation at the correctional center under the sweeping impact of state bail reform on arrestee intake rates, it was clear it was time to end our participation in the program.”

Freeholder Anthony Romano, who chairs the board’s Public Safety Committee, supported the decision and said that it won’t impact the security of any local residents.

“Circumstance have changed and the decision reflects that,” Romano said.

Kennelly provided Patch with the following statement about the decision on Monday:

“From the administration’s perspective, this was purely a numbers issue. New Jersey bail reform made the need for our one CO per shift doing 287(g) work negligible at best as arrests for bailable offenses have plummeted. This is work (flagging) ICE personnel can do now on their own without any negative impact on their efforts to remove anyone who poses a threat to our community from the country. After reviewing more than year’s worth of data, the swiftly declining arrestee statistics drove this decision, not the national fight between the Trump Administration and activists. It is a product of the sweeping change being wrought in our state’s criminal justice system by bail reform than anything else.”

Despite officials’ downplaying of Hudson County’s prior role in 287(g) enforcement, several local civil rights activist groups trumpeted the decision as a major blow for immigrant rights in the state.

"New Jersey has the third largest percentage of foreign born residents in the country, and Hudson County has the most diverse community in the state,” said Johanna Calle, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. “Relationships with ICE go against the values of our state and the needs of immigrant communities. Hudson County has realized what others should, too: that working with ICE is a liability that jeopardizes the public safety of their residents. We applaud Hudson County leadership for putting community priorities over anti-immigrant policies that separate families.”

• See related article: This Hudson County Town Has Most Immigrants In NJ, Report Says

“County Executive DeGise and Director of Corrections Edwards did the right thing by ending Hudson County’s 287(g) agreement,” said ACLU-NJ Senior Staff Attorney Farrin Anello. “Now the county can focus on protecting public safety rather than targeting immigrant residents. Other counties should follow Hudson County’s example, and we urge statewide reforms to end the use of local resources for federal immigration enforcement.”

• See related article: Hudson County Jail Inmate Dies In Custody While Serving 6-Month Sentence

"We’re thrilled and relieved that Hudson County terminated its 287(g) agreement, and we’re inspired by the power of the people of Hudson County and New Jersey advocates to persuade Hudson County to do the right thing,” said Chia-Chia Wang, organizing and advocacy director of the American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights Program. “Local law enforcement should not be in the business of carrying out federal immigration, which undermined trust among communities and negatively impacted all residents. Other counties that have similar agreement should take note and end their participation in the machinery of immigration arrests, detentions, and deportations now."

• See related article: Dozens Protest At Hudson County Jail After Immigrant Dies (PHOTOS)

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File photo by Jawaid Stationwala (protest at Hudson County Correctional Facility, June 2017)