York County leads Pennsylvania in arrests through a federal immigration enforcement program, despite accounting for just 3.6% of the state’s population, according to reporting from The Philadelphia Inquirer.<\/p>\n
The program is a 287(g) agreement, which allows local law enforcement agencies to voluntarily partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out certain immigration enforcement duties.<\/p>\n
Police departments in Pennsylvania are not required to participate, and agencies choose whether to enter into agreements with the federal government.<\/p>\n
Several York County police departments have entered into 287(g) agreements, including West York Borough, Carroll Township, Hellam Township and West Manchester Township police departments.<\/p>\n
Under the program’s Task Force Model, designated officers who receive required training can perform certain immigration enforcement functions.<\/p>\n
Mirna Miranda, organizing director for We Are CASA, said some businesses, including convenience stores and grocery stores, have seen a decline in activity as community members avoid going out.<\/p>\n
She said fear of immigration enforcement is also discouraging some residents from reporting crimes.<\/p>\n
“People are afraid to report crimes. People are afraid to report because they are making themselves a target,” Miranda said.<\/p>\n
The community concerns and the reporting from The Inquirer come just after the widely publicized arrest and deportation of Pastor Molis Augustave, a Haitian immigrant who served a congregation in York County.<\/p>\n
Augustave was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he was stopped by West Manchester Township Police on Sept. 5 for a broken headlight. The township entered into a 287(g) agreement with ICE earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Augustave had been living in Pennsylvania for six years before the Trump administration removed the Temporary Protected Status of Haitian migrants.<\/p>\n
Miranda said We Are CASA continues to hear from families who are afraid to leave their homes for everyday activities, including taking children to school and shopping for groceries.<\/p>\n
“Our families, they are like afraid to be outside. They are afraid to take their kids to school. They are afraid to do their grocery shopping, their laundry, the daily errands that they need to survive,” Miranda said.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania does not require local police departments to participate in the 287(g) program. Individual agencies decide whether to enter into agreements with ICE, which establish the immigration enforcement duties participating officers are authorized to perform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"York County leads Pennsylvania in arrests through a federal immigration enforcement program, despite accounting for just 3.6% of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-306950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306950","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=306950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}