Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt says feds threatened to arrest her over immigration policies
The Hennepin County sheriff says she is being threatened with arrest for how her office handled the Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge in Minnesota earlier this year.
The New York Times reported federal immigration officials recently started saying they would criminally charge Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt and a sheriff in Chicago.
The conflict centers on when the Hennepin County Jail turns people over to ICE. According to the New York Times, feds hand-delivered letters to Witt and others threatening arrest if they didn't fully cooperate with immigration enforcement.
The Times reports the letters started back in July and warned Witt she could face tampering charges.
Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt says federal officials have hand-delivered 17 subpoenas to her office since early July, warning her that she could face criminal consequences if her office fails to cooperate with immigration enforcement.
"We do not work with them on immigration enforcement," Witt said. "That's their job, that's not our job here as local authorities."
Back in February, during Operation Metro Surge, Witt told WCCO that the Hennepin County Jail would cooperate with ICE if agents obtained a judicial warrant for an individual's arrest.
"I am not going to make any decisions based off of people yelling at me or people trying to strong-arm me. I'm going to make the decisions based off of all the information through conversations that I'm having," Witt said at the time. "If people want to say we are cooperating by upholding Minnesota law, then so be it, but I will say again, we do not do any kind of immigration enforcement. We do not collaborate on any kind of immigration enforcement."
The Department of Homeland Security said the letters this summer were an effort to compel "sanctuary politicians" to hand over dangerous criminals so they can be deported.
In a post on social media, Witt shared that federal officials threatened to arrest her personally. She said there is "no legal basis" for the witness tampering claim and that her office is "following the law."
In a continued statement online, Witt said the "threats" won't cause her to "abandon" her "legal responsibilities or disregard the Constitution."
Witt told WCCO on Thursday many of the requests her office receives are immigration detainers, which she says often are not signed by a judge and often requests arrive after a person has already been released from county custody.
"There's actually laws that say that we cannot hold on to people longer than our legal authority to do so without having a warrant," Witt said.
She said her focus will remain on protecting Hennepin County residents and keeping communities safe, adding, "I will not stray from that mission in the face of intimidation."
Hennepin County Jail is a pretrial jail, where people routinely released throughout the day based on court decisions, according to Witt.
At the height of Operation Metro Surge, Border Czar Tom Homan credited the end of Operation Metro Surge to the increased cooperation from county jails.
In a statement, Homeland Security said some of the "worst of the worst criminal aliens" were released in Minnesota because of its "sanctuary" policies, pointing to six cases involving undocumented immigrants charged with or convicted of serious crimes.
"Non-cooperative jurisdictions have a choice: stop harboring criminal illegal aliens and releasing them into their communities, or work with ICE to make America safe again," DHS said. "Either way, ICE will not be slowing down on enforcing federal law."
Witt did consider opening the door to limited work with ICE if it slowed down Operation Metro Surge. However, she told the New York Times that she feels more confident than ever that her agency should not play a role in immigration enforcement.
In Illinois, federal officials who want immigration agents to detain and deport Cook County Jail inmates have threatened Sheriff Tom Dart with prosecution if he doesn't give them access.
Criminal defense attorney Joe Tamburino says there is no legal basis to charge sheriffs.
"I thought it was excessive and performative there is absolutely no basis in law to arrest or charge Sheriff Witt with witness tampering absolutely none," Tamburino said.
