ICE v. immigrants: Where do Lebanon police stand?

(Lebanon) — Do Lebanon police cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or do they protect immigrants without legal authorization from being detained by federal authorities?

In the wake of a recent visit from the Mexican consul – and an April ICE raid on several local pizza shopsthat led to the detention of 12 Mexican nationals – Lebanon Mayor Sherry Capello and Police Chief Todd Breiner explained their policies.

The bottom line: Lebanon police don’t seek out immigration law violations, but they also don’t shield immigrants from ICE.

“The city of Lebanon is not a sanctuary city … because sanctuary policies result in safe havens, or safer havens, for illegal aliens involved in a variety of criminal activities and enterprises,” Capello said.

Interactions with immigrants

According to Capello and Breiner:

• Lebanon police and other city officials don’t profile any nationality to ask about immigration status. This means that in many routine interactions, immigration status simply won’t come up.
• Police also don’t walk up to people on the street, unconnected with any crime, and ask about their immigration status.
• During a routine traffic stop, Lebanon police don’t check on a person’s immigration status. They simply issue a traffic citation, if appropriate, and move on.
• If a person at a traffic stop fails to provide proper identification, however, police may take that person in to central booking to determine their identity. The central booking process may lead to a prompt to contact ICE regarding an immigrant without documentation. 
• ICE will then provide instructions on what they would like police to do regarding the individual, and Lebanon police will typically comply with that request.
• Police may also contact ICE after filing criminal charges against an immigrant without documentation.
• When a crime victim contacts Lebanon police, they typically do not ask about the victim’s immigration status. If it comes up in the course of an investigation, however, the fact that they are a crime victim will not necessarily cause police to shield them from ICE.

“We do want to build trust, but at the same time, our law enforcement personnel have to do their jobs,” Capello said. “We can’t ignore the fact that illegal aliens – if illegal aliens were removed from the United States, they would not be here to be victims, and the offenders would not be here to commit the crimes.”

Interactions with ICE

According to Capello and Breiner:

• ICE rarely contacts Lebanon police seeking their support. For instance, Lebanon police were not even aware of the April raid on local pizza shops until after it occurred.
• If ICE were to ask Lebanon police to investigate a person or otherwise sought assistance, Lebanon police would comply. “They would get our support if they came into town,” Breiner said.

This story comes to us through a partnership between WITF and The Lebanon Daily News.