{"id":157628,"date":"2026-04-05T06:07:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/157628\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:07:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:07:27","slug":"welby-says-lackawanna-county-commissioners-will-never-approve-287g-agreement-with-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/157628\/","title":{"rendered":"Welby says Lackawanna County commissioners “will never approve” 287(g) agreement with ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby assured a standing-room-only crowd Wednesday that the current board of commissioners will never approve a 287(g) agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n

County District Attorney Brian Gallagher and Sheriff Mark McAndrew, both independently elected Democratic county row officers, then confirmed Thursday that their offices won\u2019t enter into those agreements to participate in the federal 287(g) program.<\/p>\n

The controversial agreements between ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies grant designated officers limited authority to enforce federal immigration law and perform certain duties otherwise reserved for federal agents. Their use has exploded during the second Trump administration, with a number of local agencies signing on to the 287(g) program\u2019s task force model since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Welby\u2019s commitment to oppose any such agreement came during debate Wednesday over a policy proposal commissioners ultimately tabled that would set protocols for potential county interactions with ICE and other federal, state or local law enforcement agencies. Several public speakers who criticized the would-be policy as an insufficient alternative to Democratic Commissioner Bill Gaughan\u2019s proposed \u201cProtect Our Neighbors Act\u201d ordinance<\/a> specifically pointed to its lack of language addressing 287(g) agreements, among other concerns.<\/p>\n

Commissioners have not formally acted on Gaughan\u2019s legislation, which seeks to prohibit any county cooperation in federal immigration enforcement absent a judicial warrant signed by a judge. A sample version of the ordinance says no county agency or agent \u201cshall enter into an agreement \u2026 that permits state or local governmental entities to enforce federal civil immigration laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the tabled policy as presented contains no such prohibition, Welby said Wednesday \u201cthese county commissioners will never approve an agreement with 287(g).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you that Commissioner Gaughan would never approve it and I can tell you that I would never approve it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gaughan denounced the agreements early last month<\/a>, warning they erode trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. He acknowledged commissioners have no jurisdiction over local police departments but said he\u2019s \u201cunequivocally opposed to any police department in Lackawanna County entangling itself in federal civil immigration enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those remarks followed the newspaper\u2019s reporting that Dickson City Police Chief William Bilinski had unilaterally signed in February an agreement for his department to participate in the task force model of ICE\u2019s 287(g) program without seeking borough council\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n

\"DicksonDickson City Police Chief William Bilinski, standing, speaks at the Dickson City Borough Council meeting on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (JEFF HORVATH\/STAFF PHOTO)<\/p>\n

Attorney Liz Kelly of the borough-contracted law firm KingSpry then advised in an early-March memo that Bilinski lacked the authority to sign the agreement with ICE<\/a>. She also raised questions about whether Dickson City\u2019s council could enter into such an agreement \u2014 the body hasn\u2019t publicly expressed a desire to do so \u2014 given council\u2019s limited authority under Pennsylvania\u2019s Borough Code.<\/p>\n

Council subsequently directed Kelly to notify ICE it hadn\u2019t authorized the 287(g) agreement and that borough police would not pursue participation in the program, Dickson City Borough Manager Cesare Forconi said this week.<\/p>\n

An ICE-published spreadsheet of agencies participating in the 287(g) program no longer lists the Dickson City Police Department, which would have been the first law enforcement agency in Lackawanna County to participate.<\/p>\n

The Luzerne County district attorney\u2019s office, the Hazleton Police Department, the Schuylkill County sheriff\u2019s office and other local agencies outside of Lackawanna County are among the more than 1,600 nationwide that are participating.<\/p>\n

Despite commitments by Welby and Gaughan to never approve a 287(g) agreement, county Solicitor Paul James Walker noted in a recent legal analysis<\/a> of Gaughan\u2019s proposed ordinance that commissioners \u201ccannot dictate operational policies\u201d to independently elected county row officers, such as the district attorney or sheriff, who have autonomy over their respective offices.<\/p>\n

Gallagher, the district attorney, said as much Thursday while noting it\u2019s \u201ccritically important\u201d and in the \u201cinterest of public safety\u201d for local law enforcement to collaborate and communicate with state and federal partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commissioners can\u2019t make any policy at all that forces law enforcement or my office or any law enforcement office to do anything,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cThat being said, we are not federal immigration authorities. We are not going to be a 287(g) participant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither am I,\u201d Sheriff McAndrew said in a subsequent phone interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Thom Welby assured a standing-room-only crowd Wednesday that the current board of commissioners will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1099,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181,729],"class_list":["post-157628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-dickson-city","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157628","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=157628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}