Sheriff Larry Smith speaks at the immigration panel Feb. 6 at Garnica Event Center in the El Norteño Mexican Restaurant. (Raquel Villatoro / Tyler Morning Telegraph File)

Certified Smith County deputies will soon have the authority to carry out certain immigration enforcement duties.

Under an agreement signed Tuesday, Smith County Sheriff’s Office personnel will be nominated, trained and then approved by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to perform functions of an immigration officer under ICE supervision as part of the 287(g) task force model.

“I’ve been saying all along … We’ll be joining it,” Sheriff Larry Smith said on Friday. “I sent it on Monday morning and got it back, signed by the director of ICE, Homeland Security, the next morning.”

ICE on Tuesday signed the task force model agreement with Smith County and 10 other agencies in six states, according to ice.gov.

While the agreement was signed this week, the department can’t officially begin implementation of the task force model until selected officers complete required training.

Once certified, deputies will have the authority to question individuals suspected of being in the U.S. unlawfully and process them for immigration violations.

These deputies will have the ability to arrest individuals without a warrant if they are found to be unlawfully entering the country or are suspected of violating immigration laws and are likely to flee before a warrant is obtained. Upon completing training, certified deputies will also have the power to arrest individuals for immigration-related felonies without a warrant under similar circumstances.

Additionally, they will be authorized to serve and execute immigration arrest warrants, administer oaths, collect evidence — including fingerprinting, photographing and interviewing — and prepare affidavits.

Deputies will also prepare immigration charging documents, such as a Notice to Appear, for ICE officer approval. They will be empowered to issue immigration detainers and records of deportable or inadmissible individuals, take and maintain custody of those arrested by ICE or other law enforcement agencies on behalf of ICE and transport detainees to approved detention facilities.

About 22 personnel from various areas of the office will receive training for the program in the coming months. The first group will include as many participants as possible, but the number of Smith County participants will depend on the number of applicants from across the region, according to Smith.

If too many people apply, the class size will be too large to fit all 22 Smith County participants at once, so multiple classes will likely be scheduled instead.

“Our personnel that are functioning as ICE under certain circumstances will be proficient and properly trained in what they need to do,” Smith said.

Keith Pearson, Senior Counselor to State and Local Law Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), informed Smith they are working on getting more agencies to apply for the 287(g) task force model. DHS is also in the process of establishing regional training centers, eliminating the need for officers to travel to South Carolina, for training at the academy.

Smith mentioned that, according to what he’s been told, so far the priority has been for Florida and Texas law enforcement agencies, though the program is open to all 50 states.

All 287(g) programs were discontinued in 2012 under the Obama administration. However, they were reinstated during the new Trump administration, which expanded its use as part of efforts to increase immigration enforcement at the local level.

“I have never seen the federal government operate this quickly,” Smith said. “Things appear to have been making great strides and changing for the better.”

287(g) Jail Enforcement Model will return

While the task force model will be new to the office, the Smith County Sheriff’s Office will also reinstate its jail enforcement model. The office has used this model before, beginning in 2017 until Smith later put it on hold about a year and a half ago.

“We reinitiated it, but we haven’t actually kicked it off,” Smith said of reinstating this model of the 287(g) program.

Officers will need to be trained to begin reimplementation of the jail detention model, Smith said. Under this model, ICE trains local personnel to process these cases themselves, allowing them to assume some of ICE’s responsibilities.

Preparations are underway, with ICE currently conducting background checks on two individuals. An ICE representative visited last week to ensure the computer ICE provided to the office was up to date and contained all necessary information, Smith said.

Everything is now ready for the first two individuals to attend the four-week academy. After that, more will follow until up to eight individuals have been trained for the jail enforcement model.

Without the 287(g) detention model, when an individual is booked into jail and their fingerprints indicate they were born outside the United States, local law enforcement sends this information to ICE, which then handles the processing.

The reason the jail model was put on hold over a year ago is because, during the previous administration, most individuals were immediately released on a personal recognizance bond, often without returning, Smith explained. The sheriff’s office decided it was not an effective use of manpower to continue processing those individuals.

ICE’s three 287(g) models

ICE’s three 287(g) models

ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations operates three 287(g) models:

The Jail Enforcement Model is designed to identify and process removable aliens — with criminal or pending criminal charges — who are arrested by state or local law enforcement agencies.

The Task Force Model serves as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.

The Warrant Service Officer program allows ICE to train, certify and authorize state and local law enforcement officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens in their agency’s jail.

{p style=”text-align: right;”}Source: ice.gov