Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is seeking to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the Department of Homeland Security labeled Las Vegas a "sanctuary city" last week.
Sheriff Kevin McMahill said he was surprised by the designation, especially given the department's strong relationship with federal agencies.
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"No notification about that list. In fact, complete surprise that it came out. Mostly because we have a great relationship with all of the federal agencies," McMahill said.
The sheriff noted that he was particularly surprised that Las Vegas was identified as a sanctuary city and said the department has notified DHS about their concerns with the categorization.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Metro applied to be part of the 287(g) program with ICE, which would allow officers to be trained by ICE to help enforce immigration laws.
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"We'd actually been in conversations with DHS and ICE about this for a few weeks," McMahill said.
The sheriff explained that the change would allow the department to hold individuals with ICE warrants for up to 48 hours if ICE cannot immediately pick them up.
"What this did, this change that I made, all it is, is if ICE can't physically pick them up, but has produced a warrant for them, I hold them on that warrant until ICE can come and get them up to 48 hours. That's it. That's the only change," McMahill said.
He expressed frustration about misinformation spreading in the community about the department's intentions.
"But of course, spreading the fear, fear spread so much faster within the community that these people are twisting into something that is not," McMahill said.
McMahill emphasized that their ICE efforts are jail-based and focused on criminal behavior when individuals are booked into the Clark County Detention Center.
The sheriff explained that while they have always notified ICE about undocumented people who committed crimes and were in jail, some were never picked up upon release due to ICE's limited manpower.
"So here were child molesters that were getting released back to the streets of Las Vegas. Rapists, murderers, people that were shooting at people, people that had been in domestic violences, multiple times, five time DUIs," McMahill said.
He shared a personal example of why he supports the change.
"I had a guy that had just killed one of my police officers on the way home from work and left three little kids and a wife without the husband because a guy who had been deported twice and was three times the legal limit, driving on the wrong side of the freeway," McMahill said.
According to McMahill, there are approximately 295 people in the Clark County Detention Center who are in the country illegally and have federal warrants.
"We already have a daily pickup at the Clark County Detention Center from ICE. We've had it for a long time," McMahill said. "But in those cases where they don't have the body to be able to come over there and do that pickup, that gives them a little bit more time to come and get those people that there's a federal warrant in existence for. And I don't have to let them out of my streets anymore."
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