ACLU asks court to end Las Vegas police partnership with ICE

(CN) — The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday asked a Nevada court to put an end to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s collaboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s crackdown on immigrants who are in the U.S. without proper authorization.

The ACLU of Nevada filed a writ petition on behalf of Sergio Morais-Hechavarria, who’s been detained for months at the Clark County Detention Center pursuant to an “ICE hold” even though a judge ordered him to inpatient treatment as part of a misdemeanor conviction.

Attorneys with the ACLU argue that Nevada law doesn’t give local law enforcement the authority to enter into agreements with the federal government to enforce civil immigration law.

While many liberal-leaning states don’t allow such agreements, ICE has entered into so-called 287(g) agreements with state and local police forces across the country under which ICE trains and certifies local officers to serve and execute arrest and removal warrants on people in custody.

“While ICE officials seemingly believe they can use local police to further destabilize communities, we don’t subscribe to their theory," ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said in a statement.

A representative of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Las Vegas police serve civil immigration warrants upon people in their custody, who otherwise would be ready to be released, and then hold them for up to 48 hours so they can be transferred to ICE. As of Sept. 1, the police department had received a total of 957 requests from ICE this year, the ACLU said.

An ICE warrant, or “ICE hold,” means a detainee can’t be released even if they post bond or are ordered to home incarceration as part of pre-trial monitoring on their state criminal charges.

In the case of Morais-Hechavarria, the ICE warrant prevents his release from the Clark County Detention Center, notwithstanding the judge’s order that he’d be directly transferred to an inpatient treatment facility. At the same time, according to the ACLU petition, the judge’s order has prevented him from being handed over to ICE, purportedly due to the police department’s belief that the order indicates his criminal case is still active.

As a result, Morais-Hechavarria has been stuck in detention since the Aug. 19 court order.

“A person shouldn’t rot in a detention facility when ordered into treatment because the federal government has pressured local governments and local police into complicity with a disastrous, destabilizing, and destructive approach to immigration enforcement,” Haseebullah said.

The ACLU argues the Las Vegas police’s agreement with ICE violates the “Dillon Rule,” which holds that unless the power to do something has been expressly granted to the county by the state legislature through the adoption of a statute, they do not possess it.

The only authority local law enforcement in Nevada has to hold people on behalf of the federal government, according to the ACLU, is when they are prisoners — detained for criminal conduct, not for civil, immigration violations — and the federal government covers the cost of their incarceration.

Moreover, the ACLU argues, holding someone in custody despite their release on criminal charges constitutes an arrest under Nevada law. While there are a limited number of cases in which local law enforcement can make a civil arrest, in general, state law prohibits peace officers from making arrests in noncriminal matters, including civil immigration arrests, according to the ACLU in its petition.

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