A new report by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) adds nearly seventy cities, towns, counties – and two entire states – to a growing list of local law enforcement jurisdictions the Trump administration characterizes as ‘non-cooperative’ or offering ‘limited’ cooperation with federal immigration enforcement actions.
The report, which ICE intends to issue weekly, lists instances and locales in which ICE officials have been or expect to be constrained if they ask local law enforcement agencies to hold individuals detained — though not necessarily charged with any crime — for potential deportation actions.
This weekly accounting was included as part of a broad executive order by President Donald Trump, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” signed in January.
The first such report included a list of about 90 “jurisdictions that have enacted policies which limit cooperation with ICE.”
That list has apparently grown, two weeks later, to over 140 communities — and appears to include the entire states of Connecticut and California (though it also singles out Hartford, Conn. and added 37 counties and cities in California).
While the phrase appears nowhere in either document, these lists have been widely interpreted as pointing to so-called “sanctuary” communities that Trump vowed to punish, including by cutting federal funding streams, for adopting policies of non-cooperation or limited cooperation with federal deportation efforts.
Locally, this week’s report has not changed from the last iteration: it lists Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Amherst and Northampton in Massachusetts; Providence and Rhode Island’s state police force; Montpelier, Vermont; and Hartford, Connecticut as being among the “non-cooperative jurisdictions” it cites.
What, exactly, these reports mean — whether in terms of immigration enforcement efforts or potential ramifications for communities that adopt policies ICE deems “non-cooperative” — isn’t entirely clear. Although U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a national review of U.S. law-enforcement grants.
The administration’s list of jurisdictions which “limit” cooperation with ICE includes self-proclaimed “sanctuary cities” like Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia – cities whose mayors and city councils have articulated prominent policies stating that the job of their police departments is to protect residents from crime — and not to assist federal immigration officials in pursuing the deportation of residents who have not been charged with or convicted with a crime.
But the list also includes many dozens of law enforcement jurisdictions, cities and counties which have not made such declarations but have established a floor for cooperation — like requiring a criminal warrant or judicial order before turning over to ICE officials people who haven’t been charged with or convicted of a crime.
The most recent list of ‘non-cooperative’ jurisdictions or those that ‘limit’ ICE access also left out a dozen cities and counties included in the first of these reports. Seven of those jurisdictions were Iowa counties.
A spokesperson for I.C.E. did not return a request for comment on the agency’s latest report.
