COMMISSIONERS COURT
Tom Green County Sheriff Nick Hanna presented an agreement for the county’s participation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Commissioners Court on Tuesday.
The item relates to the federal 287(g) Program, and the Warrant Service Officer Program, affirming compliance with Texas Senate Bill 8.
Hanna told this reporter, “To be clear, we are not transitioning away from the Jail Enforcement Model (JEM); Tom Green County has never participated in the JEM program. Any suggestion otherwise is inaccurate, and I am unsure of the source of that information.”
The Warrant Service Officer model meets legal requirements while avoiding the extensive training, additional administration, staffing demands, and risks involved with the JEM model.
Sheriff Hanna stated, “The Legislature’s intent was not to expand local law enforcement into immigration policing, but to ensure that when someone is already lawfully in a county jail, there is a consistent, lawful, and federally supervised process for serving immigration warrants.
Under the Warrant Service Officer (WSO) model, trained jail personnel are authorized only to serve U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) administrative warrants on individuals who are already lawfully in custody at the Tom Green County Jail.
The agreement does not authorize immigration enforcement activities outside the jail, nor does it involve patrol or investigative operations in the community.”
