Jackson and Teton County lawmen address immigration concerns

With growing community concern about changing immigration policies, the Teton County, Wyoming Sheriff’s Office and Jackson Police Department have released a joint letter to the community. In it, Police Chief Todd Smith and Sheriff Jim Whalen said they met with acting Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office Director Jeff Lynch and three of his assistant supervisors Monday. ICE regional offices are in Denver, Colorado. In that letter Whalen and Smith said they wanted to address some miscommunication that had been circulating in the community. They also asked anyone who came into contact with law enforcement to cooperate and communicate freely with them. The letter said in part: “1) There are no plans to conduct immigration raids in Teton County; either now or in the future. If that policy ever changes, which they do not anticipate, they will make sure they let us know and then we can let you know. Please trust us on that because it is the absolute truth. 2) They have not changed their policy on deporting people for committing minor traffic offenses. The only exception might be for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which while being a traffic offense, certainly is not a minor one. This is supported by the fact that no person has been deported from Teton County for a minor traffic offense since President Trump took office. The ICE officials did add that there could be circumstances where an individual is a habitual offender (multiple repeated traffic violations) where they might review that case for consideration of deportation, but the case would be the exception, not the rule and would have to be egregious in the number of traffic offenses. The example given by ICE was a recent case in Denver, Colorado where a gentleman with 39 traffic infractions was deported due to habitually offending the traffic laws. 3) The focus of ICE continues to be the security of the border, the deportation of people that commit serious (felony) crimes or people with serious crime convictions. Their focus is not on the deportation of those people committing lesser offenses such as driving without a valid license. 4) They will usually initiate deportation proceedings on those people that have been deported on previous occasions or have a current deportation order on file or a deportation warrant, regardless of what new offense they may have committed, whether minor or serious in nature. People with prior deportation proceedings on their record and commit a new crime should expect that a new deportation proceeding will be undertaken by ICE. The message in this is to NOT commit criminal offenses that would lead a person being in this situation in the first place. 5) ICE has always notified us in the past of when they will be coming to Jackson and they plan to continue that practice. When they come to Jackson it is to locate known fugitives (criminals) from justice, not to conduct broad sweeps for immigration violations. Local law enforcement (officers and deputies) will not be engaged in enforcing immigration laws. They will only be enforcing Wyoming State law violations.” Whalen and Smith urged people not to commit criminal offenses that put others at risk, like DUI, driving without a license or driving without insurance. They said local law enforcement is particularly focusing on alcohol-related offenses. Teton County has some of the highest numbers of alcohol related offenses in the state of Wyoming and that law enforcement took those very seriously. Mensaje Público de la Oficina del Sheriff y el Departamento de Policía acerca de Inmigración aqui.