This past legislative session lawmakers in Richmond passed a law that allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to work with local police agencies only if they adhered to certain limits. The federal government challenged the law in court, and the Commonwealth is getting backup on their arguments from a group that says the agreements can be costly.
Under the new law, ICE must name federal agents working with local law enforcement, they can’t make arrests at schools, churches or courthouses, nor can they make information demands from other state agencies if the info doesn’t impact their immigration work. Those are a few of the requirements the law’s author, Fairfax Democratic Senator Saddam Salim, said were needed in the wake of the federal agency’s recent headline making.
“Folks have gotten shot and killed," Salim told Radio IQ. "And the administration will lie to us and tell us they were attacking the ICE agents and then, of course, there’s a video that comes out contradicting what they’re saying.”
Enter Alex Kornya from the Legal Aid Justice Center. He and his group filed a friend of the court brief in the on-going legal challenge. Among their concerns? The local cost of what he calls the agency’s recklessness.
“Who gets sued, it's not ICE in a case when local law enforcement is acting as ICE, it's local law enforcement directly," Kornya said. "And this is a massive potential risk to the state that the state has no control over.”
ICE argues in court filings that quote “states have no authority to regulate federal government operations.”
But Kornya says it’s something a lot less exciting: a contract dispute.
“Can the state regulate its own contracts and is 287g in fact voluntary or is the state required to take the United States terms without being able to set out any of its own terms in return?” he asked.
A federal judge in Richmond will hear arguments in the case in early August.
