Las Vegas has become the latest U.S. city to announce that its police department will no longer honor requests from federal immigration officials to detain undocumented immigrants for possible deportation without a court order or arrest warrant.
The statement Monday from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department comes a week after the LAPD announced a similar policy change. Other cities across the nation, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Newark, N.J., and nearly all the major urban centers in California have also recently decided to limit or end their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Click here to see an ACLU map of which counties in California are no longer honoring ICE ‘holds.’
Authorities in Los Angeles said they stopped honoring ICE ‘holds’ because of questions raised by California Attorney General Kamala Harris and a federal judge in Oregon who found that local authorities violated the 4th Amendment rights of an undocumented immigrant held for two weeks on an ICE hold despite being eligible for release.
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In Las Vegas, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said the decision to stop honoring requests was made in lieu of federal clarification of the issue. “This change has nothing to do with me taking a stand on the immigration issue” said Gillespie. “It has more to do with a situation we’ve found ourselves in and this is the best thing to do until the feds figure it out.”