Twenty South Carolina sheriff’s departments have agreements to aid federal immigration officials. A House GOP proposal could take that nearly statewide. (Stock photo by Motortion/Getty Images)
Twenty South Carolina sheriff’s departments have standing agreements to aid federal immigration officials. A House GOP proposal could take that to all but one of the state’s 46 counties.
A bill filed ahead of the legislative session that begins in January would require all law enforcement agencies that operate a jail to sign agreements with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement under its 287(g) program — named for the section of a 1996 law that authorized it.
“Many are already doing this,” Rep. Travis Moore, the bill’s lead sponsor, told the SC Daily Gazette. “We’re just making it equal across the board.”
The Roebuck attorney was joined by 47 other state House Republicans who signed on to the proposal.
Participation in ICE agreements has skyrocketed both in South Carolina and nationwide under the Trump administration.
In addition to the 20 South Carolina counties, seven town police departments and two state agencies also have signed agreements with ICE. None of the towns with existing agreements have jails, so the proposed new requirement would not apply to them.
If the bill were to pass, four more city police departments — Anderson, Greer, Myrtle Beach and Rock Hill — would have to sign agreements because they operate their own jails, along with 25 other counties.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department would be exempt because the county, not the department, runs the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
Police and sheriff’s departments that do fall under the requirement would have to submit proof annually to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the state attorney general’s office showing they had signed agreements or had attempted to enter into one.
Those that fail to do so could be subject to state oversight or even suspension. The state’s Law Enforcement Training Council has the authority to temporarily suspend the certification of every officer working for a department, functionally blocking the department’s operations.
The law also mandates immigration-specific SLED training for all police and sheriff’s departments with a signed ICE agreement.
“It’s a public safety thing for me,” Moore said.
As a member of South Carolina’s National Guard, Moore has worked security at the southern border. In that time, he was part of teams that stopped large groups of people being transported into the country illegally via rail cars and trucks. Encounters such as these have him concerned about the trafficking of both humans and drugs, especially fentanyl.
“I don’t think people appreciate how serious it is,” Moore said of the deadly drug.
Moore stressed the purpose of the proposed bill was to aid ICE in detaining people who had committed crimes while they were in the United States illegally.
“These are people who have been arrested for committing crimes,” he said. “This isn’t a go out and find people thing. These are people processed into the jail.”
Sheriffs and police chiefs can choose any of three types of ICE agreements to meet the bill’s requirements.
The first type of agreement trains officers to serve warrants on undocumented immigrants already in jail for something else — called the “warrant service officer” model. The second, the “jail enforcement model,” lets local agencies identify people in their jail subject to deportation, according to the program website.
However, officers operating under the third, so-called “task force model,” recently reinstated by the Trump Administration, can challenge a person’s immigration status during their normal police duties, whether that person is arrested for another crime or not.
The two state agencies participating, SLED and the Department of Public Safety, which operates the state Highway Patrol, have opted into this agreement. As have 13 of South Carolina’s local law enforcement departments.
During the first 11 months of the year, only two sheriff’s departments, Horry and York, reported using the agreement, according to monthly updates compiled by ICE. Both have jail enforcement agreements signed in 2020. The two departments detained people from Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica, the United Kingdom and El Salvador.
Those arrested stood accused of crimes including breaking into cars, petty theft, domestic violence, assault, drugs and weapons possession, sexual conduct with minors who ranged from age 8 to age 15, one person with a prior charge of distributing fentanyl and a drunken driving incident where a pedestrian was struck and killed.
Some SC officials want to give bonuses for law enforcement officers helping ICE
Most had entered the country illegally. But one person had overstayed a temporary work visa and another was a lawful permanent resident, according to the reports.
The counties and cities that have agreed to help out the federal government with immigration enforcement previously took on these extra responsibilities with no promise of funding for operating expenses or overtime pay for officers. And many jails in the state already face overcrowding and staffing shortages.
The proposed legislation does not call for any state money to help with costs.
But, the massive tax policy and spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law July 4 included funding to reimburse law enforcement agencies for salaries and benefits of officers hired to carry out the agreements going forward. It also funded quarterly bonuses to agencies based on the number of immigrants they find who don’t have permission to be in the country.
Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, has said he wants to take that a step further, creating a national fund of $1 billion, which participating states, counties and cities could use to give officers bonuses. The amount of funding would depend on the type of 287(g) agreement the agencies entered into, he previously told the SC Daily Gazette.
