Springdale Borough\u2019s partnership with ICE has brought headaches, but records obtained from other area governments by Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source suggest that working with the federal agency can involve rewards, too.<\/p>\n
On the morning of Feb. 10, a Springdale police officer rode with a federal agent through the Allegheny Valley borough, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records.<\/p>\n
Spotting a parked white Jeep, they ran the license plate and discovered it belonged to\u00a0Randy Cordova Flores, a Peruvian man who arrived in the United States without documentation three years earlier. ICE records filed in federal court note he had no criminal record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ICE agent and officer watched as Cordova Flores left his home alone, entered the Jeep and pulled away. Soon, the law enforcement partners pulled him over for a \u201cwindow obstruction.\u201d The Springdale officer approached the vehicle, identified Cordova Flores, and then at least six agents arrested him. Cordova Flores has been held at the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center since that day.<\/p>\n
The arrest may have made the Springdale Borough Police Department \u201coperational,\u201d in ICE terms, potentially opening up a package of financial incentives, \u201cperformance awards\u201d and reimbursements from the federal government. An agency is considered \u201coperational\u201d once it makes an arrest for ICE.<\/p>\n
Since the second Trump administration began its immigration crackdown 16 months ago, 86 law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania have\u00a0active agreements\u00a0to cooperate with ICE under the agency\u2019s 287(g) program, which delegates some immigration enforcement functions to local police.<\/p>\n
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Prior to the second Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown and significant increases to ICE\u2019s budget, there were no financial incentives for the 287(g) program, which first emerged in the wake of 9\/11 as a force multiplier for the newly formed ICE, said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has researched 287(g) issues for 20 years.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source filed Right-to-Know Law record requests with numerous law enforcement agencies in Southwestern Pennsylvania that have active or terminated 287(g) agreements to better understand how the program is playing out across the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Limited records released by Springdale Borough indicate the borough began receiving invitations to \u201cpayroll submission template training\u201d meetings from ICE for the month after the Feb. 10 arrest.<\/p>\n
Springdale Borough denies that there are additional records and Public Source is appealing to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. Most other departments, though, provided records and some discussed the program. Here\u2019s what we learned.<\/p>\n
Butler County sheriff bills ICE for $194,500<\/p>\n
In January, after Butler County sheriff\u2019s deputies were filmed detaining people alongside ICE agents at a construction site in Cranberry Township, the sheriff\u2019s office received an inquiry from KDKA-TV. That set off a string of emails reflecting how Sheriff Mike Slupe has sought to change the public perception of his office\u2019s cooperation with ICE.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all getting a bad reputation over this because of a narrative that is being spewed. I lost votes in the last election and I have people calling my partnership disgusting and shameful,\u201d Slupe wrote to a field office director at ICE on Jan. 29, according to records obtained through public records requests. Slupe asked the director, Joe Gigliotti, if the agency would support a media statement that might \u201cbring more support from the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey need to know we are upholding the LAW and what we are doing does not affect them in any negative way, only positively by making our communities\/county safer by removing the illegal people,\u201d Slupe wrote. \u201cOh, and by the way, I really don\u2019t care about those who feel negatively about what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gigliotti later wrote back that the Butler County Sheriff\u2019s Office \u201cis integral to our successful operations in Butler County,\u201d and helped prepare a statement \u201cin response to the overall national \u2018anti-ICE\u2019 narrative,\u201d to share with the Butler Eagle. The release included mugshots of people arrested by ICE, and noted that the Sheriff\u2019s Office had arrested 36 people since partnering with ICE under the 287(g) program.<\/p>\n
That figure has now reached as high as 71 arrests, Slupe said in a recent interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them fight, some of them run, at the end of the day they\u2019re all illegal, and they\u2019re still deportable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Slupe recently submitted for $194,500 in financial incentives from ICE, including $100,000 for new equipment. The money was not tied to the number of arrests the office has made for ICE, he said.<\/p>\n
Slupe said that 13 of his 36 deputies, including himself, had received 40 hours of \u201cin-depth training\u201d to participate in the partnership with ICE and to be designated as \u201ctask force officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The operations, he said, are targeted. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of background checking. It\u2019s a lot of intelligence gathering,\u201d Slupe explained. He said his officers typically work eight-hour shifts for ICE, often meeting up with federal agents to seek people the agency targets, and sometimes transporting people detained to the ICE field office on the South Side. The sheriff\u2019s office has been \u201coperational\u201d since November.<\/p>\n
Some of the people detained under the partnership have been working on newly built homes or had made a traffic violation, Slupe said. \u201cThey\u2019re all legally approached,\u201d Slupe said, \u201cand then at some point they can\u2019t speak English, they have no driver\u2019s license. Maybe they have identification, maybe not. Then our ICE partners come out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ICE agents that we work with are highly trained, highly professional and highly disciplined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris, speaking generally and not specifically of the Butler County sheriff, said partnering with ICE can bring departments needed funds, but also risks \u201ca very substantial reputational hit.\u201d Beyond the political considerations for elected sheriffs and other local officials, Harris said, signing on to the 287(g) program also carries a risk of inciting \u201cfear, distrust and a cutoff from communication\u201d with the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ICE, Harris said, has no local constituency, and \u201cthey just feel invulnerable and they just go at it. If you had any ties to any community that\u2019s actually respected, that you actually felt sworn to serve, and that you were supposed to have ongoing relations with, you wouldn\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got cash to throw around,\u201d Harris said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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An ICE spokesperson did not respond to questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recognize that I lost votes in this past election because we are involved with ICE,\u201d Slupe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a law-and-order sheriff,\u201d Slupe said. \u201cIf there was not an incentive structure, I still feel it\u2019s the right thing to do \u2026 I also think that it\u2019s responsible, and if we\u2019re able to help bring money into the county, I think that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Washington County sheriff wooed with cash incentives<\/p>\n
In early September, ICE shared a memo with the Washington County Sheriff\u2019s Office and other 287(g) partners regarding \u201cnew reimbursement opportunities\u201d for local law enforcement agencies that partner with ICE under a \u201ctask force model.\u201d That model provides training for local officers and allows local police to \u201cidentify and report suspected aliens not charged with crimes,\u201d and to exercise \u201climited immigration authority on ICE-led task forces,\u201d per the agency\u2019s\u00a0brochure.<\/p>\n
The Sept. 2 memo from ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan stated local police are eligible for quarterly performance awards \u201cbased on the successful location of aliens provided by ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s seize this moment to strengthen our collaboration, enhance our capabilities, and deliver results that make a real difference,\u201d the memo concludes. \u201cThe time to act is now, because together, we are unstoppable.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Later emails from ICE officials stated that if an agency is \u201coperational\u201d before Oct. 1, it is eligible for $7,500 \u201cper credentialed officer\u201d and a $100,000 payment for vehicle purchases. Those that become \u201coperational\u201d after Oct. 1 are eligible for \u201cup to 100 percent\u201d of salary and benefits and a quarter of overtime costs \u201cfor officers who actively participate in the arrest(s) of individuals identified as ICE targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The emails also note that ICE will forward reimbursement registration packets to local law enforcement \u201cas they become operational and qualify for the reimbursement program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Records reviewed by Public Source do not indicate any transfer of funds between ICE and local 287(g) program partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In late October, an ICE official emailed Sheriff Anthony Andronas inquiring about an impending \u201c30-day operation\u201d with 287(g) partners. The operation, per the official, would include \u201csome additional training\u201d and arrests attributed to the office. \u201cWe will assign a few officers to your operation to assist, and the officers that you are able to assign each day would be participating with our officers to conduct operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The records did not include a response by Andronas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a recent interview, Washington County\u2019s Chief Deputy Sheriff Anthony Mosco said \u201cwe have not done a thing,\u201d despite signing the 287(g) agreement last June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have never had any run-ins [with ICE], we have not seen them. Our guys haven\u2019t assisted them at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Springdale Borough\u2019s partnership with ICE has brought headaches, but records obtained from other area governments by Pittsburgh\u2019s Public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[79661,77469,2443,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-178333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-crime-and-safety","tag-hardgate","tag-ice","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178333","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=178333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}