Seneca County Sheriff Frederick Stevens, Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones and Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski are the first in Ohio to ask U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to train and authorize their deputies to enforce immigration law.
Last year, Zuchowski called undocumented immigrants “illegal human locusts.”Jones recently put an “Illegal Aliens Here” sign outside the county jail. And for nearly 20 years, the Seneca County Jail has charged ICE a daily rate to house immigrant detainees who face deportation.
The new agreements, which vary in scope, would allow deputies to serve federal warrants, question the citizenship of people they stop or jail, and initiate deportation proceedings.
The agreements generate no additional revenue for local counties while potentially increasing costs. Under the policy, ICE would pay travel expenses to train deputies on immigration law. Then it’s up to the counties to cover the transportation of detainees and personnel costs, including overtime and wages, for deputies who arrest immigrants.
ICE provides no equipment under the agreement. If requested by a detainee who does not speak English, local sheriffs must pay for interpreters, who can be employed by the sheriffs.
Local sheriffs, according to the agreements, also bear the financial responsibility of property damage, injury, death or other “incidents giving rise to liability” while “acting under color of Federal authority.” The United States Department of Justice would defend deputies named in potential lawsuits.
The agreements also require local sheriffs to say virtually nothing to the media or public about who they arrest, in accordance with the Federal Privacy Act of 1974 and Department of Homeland Security rules.
This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
This article appears in Apr 10-23, 2025.