Chair says proposal maintains intent of limiting work with immigration agents, but fellow Democrat criticizes “watered down” language<\/p>\n
SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 The Lackawanna County Commissioners are slated to vote this week on a new policy that the board\u2019s Democratic chair said sets clear rules for county employees when dealing with immigration agents, but which faced criticism Tuesday from the panel\u2019s other Democrat for not going far enough.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s planned vote comes nearly two months after Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan first proposed a policy<\/a> to try and limit how the county interacts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. County residents consistently spoke up at public meetings in support of Gaughan\u2019s proposal, but it remained tabled while county lawyers scrutinized its language<\/a>.<\/p>\n Commissioner Thom Welby, the board\u2019s Democratic chair, said the proposal that is up for a vote Wednesday maintains the original proposal\u2019s intent of limiting county employees from working with federal agents. They\u2019re required to contact the county solicitor in many circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder this policy, none of our employees can give up information without talking to counsel first,\u201d Welby said.<\/p>\n Gaughan, however, criticized the policy as \u201cwatered down\u201d because it removed language from his original proposal that limits what information county officials collect and, thus, share with ICE, and took out prohibitions on voluntarily helping ICE and entering into agreements with ICE.<\/p>\n \u201cIt went from protecting rights to managing compliance,\u201d Gaughan said.<\/p>\n Republican Commissioner Chris Chermak did not return a request seeking comment.<\/p>\n The county\u2019s proposed policy \u201cestablishes uniform guidelines\u201d for county departments and employees when dealing with immigration agents, as well as \u201cany federal, state and local enforcement inquiries,\u201d the proposal states. The different iterations of the policy cite confidentiality laws and explain what type of information is confidential.<\/p>\n The language up for a vote does not bar county employees from sharing citizenship information with immigration officials, which would violate a federal statute. However, Gaughan noted that this version of the ordinance also does not include language prohibiting county agents from collecting that information in the first place.<\/p>\n At its core, the policy sets up a general protocol for county officials to follow when enforcement officials appear at county facilities. Under the policy, county officials must:<\/p>\n Request identification.Ask the purpose of the visit.Request copies of all legal documents.Notify a supervisor or department director and the chief of staff.Contact the county\u2019s top lawyer for legal review. <\/p>\n The proposal up for a vote, like earlier iterations, explains different types of judicial warrants \u2014 those signed by a judge \u2014 but this version does not define administrative warrants, which are issued by ICE without a judge\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n An earlier version of the policy circulated by Welby in the last few weeks was more explicit.<\/p>\n \u201cThey do NOT independently authorize entry into restricted areas or disclosure of confidential records,\u201d stated an earlier version of the policy in part, which added that, \u201cimmigration detainers are requests, not court orders. County employees should not independently act on these documents without supervisory review and legal guidance.”<\/p>\n Rather than define the difference in the policy, the language tasks departments with training employees on the distinction.<\/p>\n Welby said the ordinance, once passed, could be amended. Gaughan said the same thing, noting that \u201cdoing something is better than doing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Welby, who said that Gaughan wanted to amend the policy before it comes up for a vote, said he was checking with lawyers to see if there is enough time to change the policy before Wednesday\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n If not, Welby said it was also possible the current proposal could be tabled to allow for a change.<\/p>\n The meeting Wednesday is at 10 a.m. in the Lackawanna County Government Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chair says proposal maintains intent of limiting work with immigration agents, but fellow Democrat criticizes “watered down” language…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-153671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153671","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=153671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}