Police: No Role In Immigration Enforcement

What role do local police play in assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials if and when they come to town?

 It’s a question that’s been raised frequently to Cape police chiefs through their ongoing work with the MLK Action Team’s “Conversations With Police” initiative. But Chatham Police Chief Michael Anderson was succinct in his response.

 “We are not allowed to enforce or assist with the enforcement of immigration laws,” he said when reached by phone last week.

 As ICE agents continue to pursue alleged undocumented residents in communities throughout the country, including here on Cape Cod, the question of where the authority of local police departments lies in such matters has become an increased topic of conversation among members of the action team, said Jeff Spalter, who chairs the monthly “Conversations With Police” gathering between chiefs and action team members.

 “It was really amazing,” he said of the chiefs’ responses to members’ questions. “All eight of the chiefs that we work with, they were so clear.”

 In 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Lunn v. Commonwealth that local police do not have the authority “to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from state custody.”

“The primary question [from action team members] is do local police quote unquote ‘work with’ ICE or enforce immigration law, check immigration status, report people to ICE, and the answer to all of that in essence is ‘no,’” said Brewster Police Chief Health Eldredge. 

Chiefs on the Lower Cape say their interactions with ICE on immigration matters have been few and far between. Anderson said there have been two occasions in which ICE has contacted his department to alert them that they would be in Chatham. The specifics of exactly where were not discussed, he said.

“We don’t even know if they showed up or they left or if they were successful or not,” he said.

Harwich Police Chief Kevin Considine similarly said he has had occasions where ICE has notified him of their presence in town, but that his department played no role in assisting the federal agency.

“When you look at ICE activity or detainers, that’s civil,” he said. “That’s civil stuff on the federal end. We don’t deal with civil stuff, and we definitely don’t deal with federal stuff.”

That does not mean that there aren’t situations in which local police might work with ICE or other federal agencies, Anderson said. While local police have no authority in issues of immigration enforcement, they can assist other agencies on criminal matters, he said.

Spalter, meanwhile, said that police also could be called to assist federal authorities in the interest of public safety.

“And unfortunately it can look to folks like they’re helping ICE,” he said. “But they’re really there to keep the community safe.”

With people’s awareness of ICE activity heightened, chiefs say it’s important for residents and visitors to understand where the authority of local police departments lie when it comes to immigration enforcement. The Chatham and Brewster police departments have posted a list of frequently asked questions on each town’s website designed to make clear what local police can and can’t do when it comes to matters of immigration.

Eldredge said it can be easy for some to think of all law enforcement as being one and the same thing. But that’s not the case.

“When it comes to policing in a small town, law enforcement is a very small piece of policing,” he said. “By being police officers in the community, you get to know the community. And when another agency is in a community just to enforce a specific law, they don’t have the same opportunity to get to know the community, to engage with the community on a level that’s outside of law enforcement.”

But chiefs say they want to make clear that anyone in their communities can call police for assistance, regardless of their legal status. 

“If there is somebody in Chatham, in our community, that might have an issue with immigration status but they are a victim of a crime, I just want those people to know that they can call the Chatham Police Department,” Anderson said. “We will answer the call, we will investigate their crime. Do not be in fear of being deported by the Chatham Police Department.”