By: Brandon Green
With President Trump enforcing stronger immigration policies, such as the travel ban and the proposal of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the Frederick County Police have had no problem implementing stronger procedures.
According to the Frederick County Sheriff’s office, the county police are a part of the 287(g) program, which allows trained deputized officers to detain illegal immigrants who committed
crimes and give them to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Frederick County Police Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said they want to administer stricter immigration policies and he promotes establishing a stronger relationship with ICE.
However, Frederick City Police Chief Edward Hargis believes there is a problem with terrorism and that enforcing stronger immigration policies would be helpful in keeping this country safe.
But, the Frederick City Police have not enforced stricter immigration protocol.
“From the city police perspective we are not going to block off neighborhoods, that’s not what we’re about,” Hargis said. “We know we’re responsible to police a community and you got to have the relationship to be able to exchange information back and forth.”
Hargis said one of the police’s most important goals is to establish a relationship with the community. This relationship is important to maintain, especially for the Hispanic population that is expected to be 20 percent of the total population of Frederick City in 2019.
“If [an] individual is afraid that we will pick them up on an ICE detainer, then the individual that saw [a robbery] probably would not come forward with the information,” Hargis said. “Therefore that robbery never gets solved and the suspect may go on to commit other robberies.”
The Frederick City police, resource wise, do not have the personal to get involved in the fight against immigration, according to Hargis.
In their 2018 annual budget the Frederick City police are asking for a 3 percent increase from last year’s budget in order to hire two more dispatchers and not more officers, according to Frederick City Mayor Randy McClement’s proposed budget.
This does not come as a surprise because Hargis said he does not anticipate a change in procedure to handling immigrants.
However, this could change if Frederick City becomes a sanctuary city, with President Trump threatening to cut federal funding from those cities.
According to Henneberry, if Frederick City was to become a sanctuary city, it would not change their protocol. They would still take suspects to the county detention center and let the county police handle the suspects.
According to Hargis, the Frederick City Police cannot detain immigrants because it also goes against legislation.
“Immigration detainer or warrant is a civil order,” Hargis said. “Here in Frederick City we cannot detain anybody based on an ICE order because it not a judicial order; it is administrative. The only time that an individual in Frederick can be involved in an ICE matter is if ICE comes and picks them up or we take them to the detention center.”
The Frederick City police protocol calls for them to only ask for information of a suspect, such as identification. If the individual is arrested, the city police will take them to the adult detention center.
From there, the county sheriff deputies process the suspect to determine if he or she is an illegal immigrant. If they are then the deputies will contact ICE to pick up the individual, according to Frederick City Police Patrol Commander Kirk Henneberry.
Hargis does not believe, unlike Jenkins, that immigrants are responsible for the increased crime and gang activity in Frederick.
According to the Frederick City “2016 Year End Crime Statistics,” there was only a 0.3 percent increase in total crime, which is a total of six crimes. The crime that increased the most was theft of motor vehicles, which had a 30 percent increase from 2015.
Hargis said this boost in crime has more to do with the drug epidemic in Frederick, 153 overdoses in 2016, than it has to do with immigrant crime.
According to State Attorney General, there has been an uptick in hate crimes in Maryland since President Trump has been elected.
However, this has not been a problem in Frederick City, according to Hargis.
“Here in Frederick, this department has made a large investment in reaching out to the communities, whether we’re with the Muslim Community at the mosque or the Asian American Center,” Hargis said. “We attended multiple community functions to build that relationship, so there is trust.”
The Islamic Society of Frederick President, Mizanur Rahman, said he used to be afraid to come to the temple and pray, because of the possibility of hate crimes. But, the Frederick City Police presence at the temple has given his community comfort.
The Frederick City Police also helped the Islamic Society organize a march through the city of Frederick to express their discontent with the travel ban.