SALT LAKE CITY — Local sheriff’s offices in Utah are partnering with ICE through the 287(g) federal program to help enforce immigration laws.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Weber, Tooele, Sanpete, Beaver and Washington counties are on ICE's list of participating agencies. There is a pending agreement with Cache County.
"We're still working on it. Nothing's finalized yet,” said Beaver County Sheriff Cody Black.
He said the program agreement is still in early stages and they are figuring out what exactly this partnership looks like, but he wants to clarify that deputies will not be conducting ground operations to actively find people who might be here illegally.
“We're just trying to work with ICE, get a little better training on what we need to do when people are booked into our facility that have committed a crime,” Black said.
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He emphasized that not much will change, and public safety is still the priority.
"It’s business as usual here in Beaver County," he said. "We are going to do our jobs. We enforce the laws in the state of Utah, and if something happens that we have to try to figure out if somebody is here legally or not, we contact ICE, let them do their job, and if we have to work with them a little bit, ask a few questions, we're still going through that training process."
We also spoke to Weber County Sheriff Ryan Arbon, who echoed a similar message, saying this process will help with figuring out someone's immigration status after they have committed a crime and are arrested. But, he added that the plan is not to go out and try to find and arrest people who might be here illegally.
