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The Nebraska State Patrol will soon have immigration enforcement responsibilities. Six trained troopers will be assigned to question suspected undocumented individuals about their immigration status and make immigration arrests without a warrant. Nebraska Public Media’s Dale Johnson sat down with Col. Bryan Waugh to talk about the patrol’s authority under what’s known as a 287(g) partnership with ICE under the Task Force Model.
Bryan Waugh: So, the 287(g) model is an opportunity for state and local law enforcement to partner with the Department of Homeland Security through ICE – immigration, Customs Enforcement. We've committed to providing six Nebraska State troopers as task force officers. Keep in mind, this is going to be a secondary assignment. These troopers will have a full-time responsibility, either a traffic division trooper or investigative services division trooper, and they will perform these duties under the supervision of ICE on an as needed basis. So six troopers, for me, makes sense, because we've got six troop areas across the state, so this will be an opportunity for us to assist our federal partners with the enforcement efforts pertaining to any immigration status offenders that are criminal that have other criminal charges in the United States prior to potential deportation proceedings.
Dale Johnson: Do these troopers have any specialized training at this point? Or will everything that they need to do require training?
Waugh: These troopers have not been selected yet, so some of these troopers may have some experience in this particular space, but they won't be fully trained, which is the second phase of the process would be once they're selected, they will attend a training course provided by ICE before they are certified and credentialed as a TFO or task force officer.
Johnson: A lot of attention is devoted to an ICE raid. these troopers, how will they come across suspected people who are undocumented?
Waugh: That's a great question, Dale, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to it because I would love to make sure that we alleviate any misperception from our community. These troopers are going to assist the our federal partners at DHS and ICE and you know, it has been the direction that I received from from our governor that it's very important that we are able to partner with our federal law enforcement agencies, but we're not going to be in the Business of these mass raids, as you call them. We are more in the position of assisting in the event that there's, for instance, there's a traffic stop where there's a maybe there's an undocumented, criminal, illegal person that's in the country illegally. Our troopers can assist with that, and it's more of an assistance role with the logistics involved with the detention, the booking, where are we going to take them to, what county are they in? Can our troopers assist with that, or helping with intelligence gathering of those types of cases, but from an overall warrant service operation, unless it's a case where we know there's a potential group of known criminal aliens gathering at a location, our troopers won't be involved in these mass type of arrests.
Johnson: What if the trooper is stopping an individual in the Panhandle and there's no ICE around, What are his or her responsibilities?
Waugh: So if there's an untrained, non-TFO trooper, so say, just a member of our traffic division, makes a traffic stop in the panhandle, and there's probable cause to believe that they've contacted a person who may be an undocumented criminal alien. They may contact their troop area task force officer. So the concept would be every troop area will have a task force officer, and that's why we have six troop areas and six task force officers, so they could theoretically contact that TFO and ask for guidance, because that TFO will have received the training from ICE on the criteria for even just reviewing documents to determine what the status is of that particular person they're contacting and go through the proper procedures on whether or not there's a detention needed or not.
Johnson: The McCook facility is built for around 200 individuals. It'll be modified to have a capacity of 300. Do you expect detainees to be transported to McCook from other states?
Waugh: You know, just my limited information, that's a question probably better directed towards director Jeffreys, but I would anticipate, yes, there would probably be some, some inmates that would be transported from other states.
Johnson: And the State Patrol would be involved?
Waugh: We would not facilitate any transports from out of state.
Johnson: From another state, that would be an ICE issue?
Waugh: It would, yes.
Johnson: Nebraska State Patrol Col. Bryan Waugh joining me for the conversation on Nebraska Public Media. I'm Dale Johnson.