Teton County Has Let 103 Illegal Immigrants Slip Away In Two Years, Says ICE

Within the past 21 months, the Teton County Sheriff’s Office has allowed 103 illegal immigrants to slip away from Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the agency told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.

Immigration Customs and Enforcement on Tuesday countered earlier statements by Democratic Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr, regarding a dispute about whether Carr’s office has scuttled ICE’s operations in recent months.

U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, made the dispute public by announcing in her Sunday newsletter that the Teton County sheriff’s office has not been honoring ICE’s requests for holds.

A Hundred Holds Scuttled

Since February 2023, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) has issued 118 detainer requests to the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, asking the local agency to hold illegal immigrants in the jail for up to 48 hours until ICE can get them, according to an email an agency spokesman sent Tuesday to Cowboy State Daily.

These detainers are often an administrative request from ICE pertaining to people who were already in the jail on suspicion of other crimes, but whom ICE would like to pick up before they’re released on bond or other terms.

Within that timeframe, 103 of those detainers fell apart after the jail let the suspects go before ICE could get them, ICE’s statement says. 

“ERO has lifted 103 detainers that were issued to the Teton County Jail (after they) were not honored by the Teton County Sheriff’s Office,” says ICE’s statement.

Some Disagreement Here

“Additionally,” the statement continues, “Teton County Sheriff’s Office does not notify (ICE’s operation) before releasing noncitizens from their custody, limiting (our) ability to take timely action on these cases.”

The result, the statement indicates, is that illegal immigrants slip away before they can be dealt with by the agency.

On this point, Carr countered.

He said Tuesday that his office does notify ICE when a noncitizen has a bond hearing or other possible release date upcoming, a statement he reiterated from a Monday interview with Cowboy State Daily.

“We let them know when the court date is and let them know when the release might be,” said Carr.

Neither Carr’s interview nor ICE’s statements bridge the two very different narratives together.

But John Fabbricatore, who served prior as ICE’s senior executive director for Colorado and Wyoming, said there are ways for a sheriff’s office to notify ICE without really notifying ICE.

“Oftentimes sheriffs get around it by notifying ICE — but they’ll notify ICE 15, 20 minutes before they let (people) out the door,” said Fabbricatore.

He said he didn’t know if that’s what Carr’s office does, and noted that he doesn’t know Carr personally or how involved Carr is in his office. But this is a scenario he’s seen with sheriffs that don’t want to work with ICE.

“Especially sheriffs who don’t believe in the process, but still want to be in compliance, they’ll say, ‘Look, we sent ICE a notification!’” he said. “And if you look at the notification and time of release it’ll be a very short notice.”

Speaking to the figure of 103 scuttled detainers, Fabbricatore said that number "knocked me over." 

"I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' That is a large amount, especially for a small sheriff's department," he said. "For a smaller department, that means there's a large amount of possible criminal aliens in that area."

When It Fell Apart

ICE and the Teton County Sheriff’s Office haven’t worked smoothly together since Feb. 22, 2023, the ICE statement indicates.

That was the date of an official talk between ICE and Carr.  

“During that correspondence, Sheriff Carr informed ICE that the Sheriff’s Office would only detain noncitizens based on a court request accompanied by a judge’s signature,” says the statement, adding that Carr also said the sheriff’s office was pulling out of its intergovernmental service contract with ICE’s operations team.

That agreement allowed ICE to pay to house illegal immigrants in the Teton County Jail for up to 72 hours instead of the standard 48.

Having such an agreement in place could alleviate a sheriff’s concerns about getting sued for holding people too long, said Fabbricatore. That agreement would let the sheriff transfer detainees straight from county custody to ICE custody without having them leave his facility.

Not Sure What Happened There

Carr told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that he doesn’t remember canceling that agreement.

“I don’t know if that’s a contract that was presented to us, or one we had that we didn’t renew,” said Carr. “I am not familiar with that.”

Carr defended his decision to only detain people when ICE gets a judge-signed order, saying he’s concerned about getting sued for holding people too long.

Many other sheriffs in Republican-led states are comfortable holding detainees up to 48 hours past their release eligibility, even with a detainment request from ICE that isn’t signed by a judge, Fabbricatore told Cowboy State Daily.

Carr said he isn’t comfortable with that because the American Civil Liberties Union sees Teton County as “ripe” for a lawsuit. Teton hasn’t been sued on this issue before, he clarified.

“(But) we’re certainly at risk, the ACLU is always looking at us pretty hard,” he said.

That’s because the community itself may be favorable toward an ACLU lawsuit against the county on these matters, Carr added.

In Your Town

ICE’s operations team conducted an operation in Teton County between Aug. 19-24, the statement says. The Denver operations team partnered with the U.S. Marshals’ Violent Offender Task Force to target 12 people with outstanding federal warrants.

The operation apprehended six people successfully, while six are still wanted, the statement says.

Carr told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that he hadn’t heard of an operation in Teton County for several months.

And yet ICE says its operations team told Teton County Sheriff’s Office “at its outset, in compliance with ICE policy,” that it was working in the Jackson Hole area.

ICE tells local sheriffs on the date of their operation what addresses they’re visiting and what vehicles they’re using, says the statement.

“They said they notified us; I don’t recall,” said Carr. “I remember hearing about it after the fact. The reason I recall that is it was something to do with the Cheyenne (ICE) office which is not typical for us. We’re generally involved with the (agents) from Casper.”

"Why Is It Teton County?"

As for Hageman, who is Wyoming’s lone U.S. House representative, she said ICE’s statements support the statements she made in exposing the controversy in her Sunday newsletter.  

“Teton County does not honor lawfully issued ICE detainers. Teton County has released criminal illegal aliens despite the fact that ICE has requested them to be held pursuant to U.S. immigration law,” wrote Hageman. “It is my understanding that every other county in Wyoming honors ICE detainer requests; the very ones that Teton County refuses to acknowledge."

In a separate Tuesday interview on Jake Nichols’ Cowboy State Daily morning radio show, Hageman said Carr seemed to deflect when first quoted on the subject Monday.

“Why is it that it’s Teton County that is having this issue?” asked Hageman.

She said some of the illegal immigrants were arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated or sex crimes.

“The people in Teton County and the surrounding area should be terribly concerned that (authorities are) releasing illegal aliens into the community, that have criminal records or that have been arrested for things that would actually qualify for them to at least go through the process for deportation,” Hageman said.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.