{"id":166833,"date":"2026-04-15T19:47:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166833\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T19:47:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:47:27","slug":"lackawanna-county-passes-policy-on-ice-interactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166833\/","title":{"rendered":"Lackawanna County passes policy on ICE interactions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The vote governs how county employees must treat encounters with immigration authorities, though it is not the more stringent ordinance proposed earlier this year<\/p>\n

The Lackawanna County commissioners voted 2-to-1 Wednesday to adopt a policy governing how county government employees should handle potential interactions with federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n

The policy is not the “Protect Our Neighbors” ordinance that Commissioner Bill Gaughan introduced earlier this year, which never came up for a vote amid worries it could provide President Donald Trump’s administration a pretext to make an example of former President Joe Biden’s hometown.<\/a><\/p>\n

The policy, which passed by resolution and only required one vote, is a stripped down version of the ordinance<\/a>, and essentially just provides county employees guidance to contact their department director, the chief of staff and, potentially, the county solicitor for legal review should U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or others request information. Gaughan introduced his ordnance after ICE reportedly asked a county director for help. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Commissioner Thom Welby, the board’s chair, first introduced the policy alternative to Gaughan’s proposed ordinance two weeks ago, though he agreed to table it<\/a> to try and strengthen the document’s language.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Welby appeared to consider delaying the vote again, but seconded Gaughan’s motion to bring it to a resolution<\/p>\n

Gauaghn said that no policy currently exists to guide county employees on ICE interactions, which just creates “confusion and inconsistency and potential risk for employees and residents.” The policy that went to a vote did not go as far as he thinks it should, “but it is also true that this policy is not nothing” and it can be later amended.<\/p>\n

“It’s a step forward in the right direction and I think we can improve it,” Gaughan said.<\/p>\n

Gaughan and Welby, two Democrats, voted in favor of passing the policy. Commissioner Chris Chermak, a Republican, voted “no.”<\/p>\n

The version that passed Wednesday is essentially the same policy that was previously tabled, save for a provision that the county, through its board of commissioners, will not enter into an agreement with ICE that allows county officials to enforce immigration law, a pact commonly known as 287(g) agreements.<\/p>\n

However, row officers are not bound to that policy because they exercise independent statutory authority. That renders the policy’s 287(g) prohibition as largely symbolic, since the county’s law enforcement \u2014 the only kind of agencies that can enter 287(g) agreements \u2014 are governed by two row officers: the district attorney and the sheriff.<\/p>\n

District Attorney Brian Gallagher said Wednesday his office will not enter into a 287(g) agreement, noting that the detectives in his office must remain focused on investigating crime throughout the county. He added, however, that he would not support a policy that tries to restrict his detectives from communicating with different levels of law enforcement, including federal authorities, which he said is contrary to public safety.<\/p>\n

“Our responsibility is clear,” Gallagher said in a statement. “To enforce the criminal laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania fairly and without bias. We will continue to work every day to protect this community \u2014 everyone in it \u2014 regardless of who they are, what they look like, or where they come from. We will simply follow the law.”<\/p>\n

Sheriff Mark McAndrew echoed the same sentiment and said he too would not sign a 287(g) agreement. He said he will only do “what I’m required by law.”<\/p>\n

“I just don’t feel comfortable doing it,” McAndrew said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The vote governs how county employees must treat encounters with immigration authorities, though it is not the more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-166833","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\/166833","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=166833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}