LANSING – Many Michigan sheriff’s departments lack the legal authority to enforce federal civil immigration laws, but they continue to assist federal agencies in many cases, according to officials.
According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website, while arrests were down nationally in 2024, they are expected to rise sharply as a result of new policies implemented by the Trump administration, and detentions are already up slightly.
Federal law enforcement agencies frequently rely on local sheriff and police departments to house detainees while they await a hearing.
There is also a policy that allows local officers to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws through so-called 287(g) agreements, which delegate some federal duties to state or local officers.
This has sparked debate about the extent to which local law enforcement agencies should cooperate with federal policies that may not be popular in their communities.
According to Matt Saxton, executive director of the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association, “We are a northern border state, and we definitely have illegal immigration right here in our state, whether that’s coming across the river from Windsor, or up in St Clair County, or even coming across the Upper Peninsula along the river at the eastern end of the state.”
Some Michigan agencies, including the Sanilac County Sheriff’s Department and the Grand Rapids Police Department, have publicly stated that a lack of resources prevents them from working more closely with ICE and that it is not their responsibility to enforce federal laws.
Other departments hold a different viewpoint.
“I doubt that many, if any, law enforcement agencies will sign up to handle full enforcement of immigration laws. “It’s not their job,” Saxton explained.
“Local law enforcement and sheriffs have to concentrate on the duties that they are responsible for and the citizens they serve,” according to him.
Mike Bitnar is the Chippewa County Sheriff. “We are currently short-handed and unable to keep up with our own work, so I doubt we would agree to work with ICE. The federal agencies in this county do not require our assistance because they have an adequate number of agents,” he stated.
There are various types of agreements that local governments can reach with ICE. One involves housing immigration detainees for the federal government. This type of agreement is in place at several Michigan sheriff’s departments, including Chippewa County.
According to Bitnar, the county has been housing detainees for 22 years, which he considers routine.
“It’s just an everyday occurrence. Sometimes we have a few, sometimes a lot. “We just house detainees while they wait for court,” he explained.
Saxton explained how detainee housing works: “There are several sheriffs’ offices that have intergovernmental support agreements with ICE.” One is Calhoun County, where he previously served as sheriff.
Calhoun County has a 600-bed jail and averages 160-170 immigration detainees per day.
“We had an agreement to house ICE detainees for the better part of 25 years,” he told me. Monroe and St Clair counties are among those that have such agreements.
In Chippewa County, Bitnar stated, “Right now, we have maybe 40 detainees in our jail, which has a capacity of 178. We have a lot of extra space because we typically hold only 80-100 local prisoners at a time.
He said the number has recently increased, but “we never ship out our local prisoners to another facility or pay someone else to hold them just so that we can have ICE detainees,” he said.
According to him, the county’s arrangement with ICE does not put a strain on the jail’s resources or cost taxpayers anything because of federal reimbursement.
The other type of agreement, the 287(g) program, allows local officers to carry out ICE operations such as warrant service.
According to Saxton, such arrangements are separate from housing agreements.
“I don’t know of any sheriff’s office in Michigan that has signed such an agreement with ICE and is doing hands-on immigration enforcement,” he told me.
“That’s not a sheriff’s responsibility – that’s a responsibility of the federal government,” Saxton told the audience.
According to the ICE website, the program improves collaboration between state and local agencies. The Trump administration’s recent executive order encourages the expansion of such agreements.
According to Saxton, such agreements provide three options: serving a warrant and taking someone into custody, having a jail officer act as an ICE agent within the jail, and having a task force officer do immigration enforcement work in the field.
According to Saxton, he does not believe these arrangements will spread in Michigan.
Nonetheless, illegal immigration is a concern for local agencies, he said, noting that some sheriffs are concerned about an increase in crime caused by undocumented migrants.
“If there were fewer individuals coming into this country illegally, many coming in undetected, I would think the crime rate would decline,” he stated.”
Bitnar, from Chippewa County, agreed. “Illegals have always crossed the St. Mary’s River from Canada into our county, but not on a large scale. It’s not like the southern border, where thousands of people are rushing through.”
“There are parts of our county where you could throw a baseball into Canada. “But it’s not widespread,” he said.
