READING, Pa. \u2013 The Berks County Commissioners heard from two county residents Thursday morning asking that the county end its cooperation with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n
Wyomissing resident Crystal Kowalski said it\u2019s time for the county to rethink its cooperation with ICE.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the practices ICE has employed in the nine months that have followed Berks County’s decision to fully comply with ICE detention requests, I’m asking this board and the jail board to discontinue holding people past their legal release date and time,\u201d Kowalski said. \u201cI would also like to say if it is not required by law, I request you do not hold people for this additional 48 hours. It is possible that this agency will be held accountable for its actions in the future. There is much discussion about a county\u2019s potential liability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Annette Garber, Sinking Spring, said that as an educator, she has worked with the immigrant population and multilingual students.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir stories and their faces are very dear to my heart,\u201d Garber said. \u201cAfter witnessing the recent videos of violence in Minneapolis upon our immigrant neighbors, I’m coming to express my concerns for our neighbors here in Berks County. I learned that our local prison has turned over detained immigrants into ICE hands and I understand that the Berks prison will hold people who have been arrested for some other reason for up to 48 hours so that ICE can have time to pick them up even if they are only suspected to have questionable immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very concerned that we would potentially hand over any of our detainees to this agency to fill their detention centers, their quotas and their pockets with money, especially if these detainees lack a true danger to our county,\u201d Garber said. \u201cI’m concerned about the use of county resources to aid and abet this agency. So, I’m just here to plead on behalf of my neighbors that we do not cooperate with ICE or federal agents. I believe our local police and local government are the ones that know our community, they know our neighbors. I think they are the ones that are much more equipped to handle these situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Christian Y. Leinbach said the county\u2019s sheriff\u2019s department does not have any kind of an agreement with ICE.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe county does not have any kind of contractual agreement with ICE either,\u201d Leinbach said. \u201cWhat we’re talking about is not something new. When someone is arrested, they are brought downtown into this building for central booking. We’re talking about criminally charged individuals; we’re not talking about people being picked up from their home or their school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they are in booking, their immigration status is checked,\u201d Leinbach explained. \u201cAs far as I know, it has been checked as long as I can remember. If they are here illegally, ICE is notified and then they go before a judge, and it’s determined whether they go to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the jail, that status is again checked, along with a number of other things,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the jail confirms that status, they again notify ICE. A detainer doesn’t happen automatically. A detainer is issued when ICE determines it’s going to be issued. And in most cases the individual is there on a charge, and a detainer only comes into play when either the charge is dropped, or the individual is going to be released pending a hearing.<\/p>\n
An ICE detainer is a request from ICE to a local law enforcement agency to hold a non-citizen for up to 48 hours after their scheduled release from criminal custody.<\/p>\n
That decision was made by the prison board in early 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this would be changed, it would be changed through the prison board,\u201d Leinbach said. “I do not have any problem with the 48-hour ICE detainer. And again, we’re only talking about people that are criminally charged.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 The Berks County Commissioners heard from two county residents Thursday morning asking that the county…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[43666,349,43667,10200,43668,43670,2443,128,130,129,43669],"class_list":{"0":"post-87694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-annette-garber","9":"tag-berks-county","10":"tag-berks-prison","11":"tag-christian-y-leinbach","12":"tag-crystal-kowalski","13":"tag-detainer","14":"tag-ice","15":"tag-reading-city","16":"tag-reading-city-headlines","17":"tag-reading-city-news","18":"tag-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694","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=87694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}