\u201cWe do have a piece of proposed legislation dealing with \u2026 working with ICE and that issue,\u201d Welby said during Wednesday\u2019s session. \u201cUnfortunately I did not get it to the commissioners and staff members until very late Monday afternoon, not giving them enough time to review it (and) not giving us enough time as a group to review the language that is being proposed. We will be talking about it in the next week or two, and it will be brought up at the next work session to hopefully be presented at the April 1 meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Lackawanna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/STT-L-COUNTY-0319-01.jpg\")
Lackawanna County Commissioners Bill Gaughan and Thom Welby confer before the commissioners\u2019 meeting held at the county government center in Scranton Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n
After Wednesday\u2019s meeting, Welby described the policy as \u201cno less than guidelines, and maybe an ordinance,\u201d but agreed it would establish guidelines for how county employees and officials interact with ICE or other federal agents when it comes to the enforcement of federal immigration law. Asked if it differs in any significant way from Gaughan\u2019s proposed ordinance, Welby said: \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ordinance Gaughan proposed in early February could not and would not prevent federal agents from enforcing immigration law in the county, but seeks instead to prohibit the county and its employees from cooperating with immigration-enforcement actions unless presented with a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge. Gaughan\u2019s proposal would otherwise prohibit the county from sharing information with ICE or Customs and Border Protection agents and bar agents from using county facilities, information or equipment for investigative purposes related to immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
![\"Lackawanna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/STT-L-COUNTY-0319-10.jpg\")
Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak listens to public comment during the commissioners\u2019 meeting held at the county government center in Scranton Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n
Gaughan briefly addressed Welby\u2019s pending proposal Wednesday, drawing distinctions between it and his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all I think that we share the same goal, and that is to protect our residents, support our employees and make sure the county is acting within the law,\u201d Gaughan said. \u201cSo the difference here is not the goal, it\u2019s the approach. The policy that Commissioner Welby has circulated I believe is internal guidance. It tells employees how to respond in certain situations and I believe that that has value, but it ultimately, in my opinion, leaves the decisions up to interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does not create clear, enforceable boundaries, and I believe that the Protect Our Neighbors ordinance that I put forward with the help of the Community Justice Project and the Pennsylvania Immigration Project \u2026 does do that,\u201d Gaughan continued. \u201cI am happy to have the conversation and discuss those differences with Commissioner Welby, but I hope that the Protect Our Neighbors ordinance does end up on the agenda because I do feel very, very strongly about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioners have yet to formally introduce Gaughan\u2019s proposed ordinance, a sample version of which was the subject of an internal legal review.<\/p>\n
Following that review, county Solicitor Paul James Walker warned in a recent confidential memo to commissioners that adopting the sample ordinance as written \u201ccarries significant risks\u201d for the county, including possible exposure to civil litigation and even the \u201cpotential criminal prosecution of officials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Members of the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic at Villanova University\u2019s Charles Widger School of Law disputed elements of Walker\u2019s memo in a recent letter to the commissioners obtained by the newspaper. The letter from clinic Director Caitlin Barry and certified legal interns Leah Tabor and Alexandra Labonte effectively amounts to an outside legal analysis and argues Gaughan\u2019s proposed ordinance \u201cdoes not materially increase the County\u2019s exposure to civil litigation and is unlikely to subject County officials to criminal prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The different analyses notwithstanding, Walker\u2019s memo wouldn\u2019t be public at all had Gaughan not unilaterally sent it to local journalists earlier this month after failing to convince his colleagues to waive attorney-client privilege and release it in the interest of transparency.<\/p>\n
Gaughan declined Wednesday to provide a copy of Welby\u2019s pending policy proposal, but reiterated he stands behind his original Protect Our Neighbors legislation. The meeting\u2019s public speakers overwhelmingly backed it as well.<\/p>\n
Among them was Amanda Karpiak, 20, a Scranton High School graduate currently attending the University of Scranton. She joined a chorus of speakers who\u2019ve seized the opportunity in recent weeks to express their outrage over ICE\u2019s aggressive and controversial enforcement tactics.<\/p>\n
![\"Amanda](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/STT-L-COUNTY-0319-09.jpg\")
Amanda Karpiak, of Scranton, speaks in favor of the \u2018Protect Our Neighbors Act\u2019 during the commissioners\u2019 meeting held at the county government center in Scranton Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here to say I support the Protect Our Neighbors Act, and for those of you who might be on the fence about passing this act \u2014 like fearing backlash from the federal government or for some other reason I can\u2019t really comprehend \u2014 I just want to say that now is not the time for cowardice,\u201d Karpiak said. \u201cNow is not the time for meekness and now is not the time for concessions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to draw hard lines against the abuses and constitutional violations that we\u2019ve been seeing across the country, and we need to stand up both within and outside of government,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe\u2019re all caring citizens here. We\u2019re all neighbors and friends. If we can\u2019t draw a hard line against ICE as a county after all they\u2019re doing and after all they\u2019ve done, what\u2019s the point of government? \u2026 It\u2019s hard to have faith in the government right now, and you have the opportunity to restore a little bit of it by passing this ordinance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next commissioners work session is March 25. The next public commissioners meeting is April 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby forecasted a forthcoming policy proposal pertaining to potential county interactions with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-142058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}