By Ben Orner / Broadcast version by Mary Kuhlman
Reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration

Since President Donald Trump took office early last year, his administration has ramped up enforcement of America’s immigration laws.

One part of that increase is a rise in detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that enforces immigration laws and deports unauthorized immigrants.

Detainers ask local, state and federal jails and prisons to hold suspected unauthorized immigrants for an additional 48 hours so ICE can pick them up and begin the deportation process.

In Trump’s first six months in office, ICE sent 38 percent more detainers to law enforcement agencies nationwide and 37 percent more detainers in Ohio, compared to President Barack Obama’s last six months. That’s according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

The Trump administration needs the help of local law enforcement for its crackdown on immigration, but complying with detainer requests is not required by law. Communities that do not comply are referred to as “sanctuaries.”

In Ohio, though, sanctuaries are hard to come by, as law enforcement regularly complies with ICE’s requests to pick up immigrants for deportation.

Data for Ohio

Through a hard-fought series of Freedom of Information Act requests and court victories, TRAC has compiled a database of every ICE detainer received by local law enforcement agencies across the nation for about the last 15 years.

TRAC’s records for Ohio are current through July 2017 and date back to November 2002. Since then, ICE requested the transfer of more than 27,000 undocumented immigrants from city jails, county jails and state and federal prisons in nearly every county in the state.

County jails received the majority of those detainers, accounting for 71 percent of the total.

The top county for detainers, Franklin, is Ohio’s most populous with more than 1.2 million residents. When adjusting for each county's population, Franklin is still first for detainers, but that is where the correlation ends.

The Clark County Jail, located in Ohio's 21st most populous county, received the second-most detainers. Fayette County, Ohio’s 74th-most populous county with just 29,000 residents, received the third-most detainers.

Some heavily-populated counties like Cuyahoga (2nd), Summit (4th), and Lucas (6th) received just the 59th, 55th and 58th most detainers, respectively.

ICE withheld most information about the detainers and the immigrants named in them. The agency released limited information that included the person’s gender and citizenship.

More than 63 percent of the immigrants on the detainers were originally from Mexico. Next came Guatemala at 9 percent, while 4 percent were from Honduras. Nearly 97 percent were male and only three percent were female.

One important piece of information that ICE included, though, was whether some detainers were refused. ICE provided outcomes for only about a third of the detainers sent to Ohio law enforcement agencies, but in more than 98 percent of those cases, ICE said the agencies did not refuse the detainer.

Bob Cornwell, the executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association, said it is common practice for county jails in Ohio to hand over unauthorized immigrants to ICE.

“Policies have remained fairly consistent over the years,” he said.

Portage County Sheriff David Doak agrees with Cornwell, and said his deputies and correctional officers are instructed to comply with ICE. His jail received 56 detainers and did not refuse at least 30, according to TRAC.

Trump’s Increased Crackdown

One byproduct of illegal immigration Doak sees firsthand is drug trafficking, particularly coming across the Mexican border with the United States.

“Trump took issue with that politically,” he said. “He made a stand with that, and once he committed to it, he was kind of obligated to follow through. And we’re beginning to see the extent of that.”

“It’s caused jail overcrowding, deaths, the list could go on,” he said. “(Drugs have) been coming across the border for years, and law enforcement has taken a pretty tough stand.”

Immigrants'-rights groups point out that the majority of people who are undocumented are not drug dealers, and that they are detained for a variety of reasons.

Doak also expects ICE to pay more attention in rural areas where law enforcement has not had much interaction with unauthorized immigrants, like Portage County.

“I can almost assure you if we picked someone up now and called ICE,” Doak said, “they would probably come and get them without delay.”

The sheriff’s office actually has no official policies regarding ICE or unauthorized immigrants, because of its irregular interactions with them.

“It’s not something in the past that was earth-shaking,” he said.

With Trump’s increased crackdown, though, the sheriff’s office is looking into implementing policies specifically related to ICE and unauthorized immigrants. Some policies Doak’s office is drafting would decide whether to hand over unauthorized immigrants who are witnesses of crimes and whether the Portage County Jail should begin to track the citizenship status of its inmates.

Personal Versus Professional

Though Doak, a Democrat, is committed to upholding the law by complying with ICE detainers, he is sympathetic when he talks about the families of the immigrants handed over to ICE for deportation.

“I just morally think that it’s wrong to split families up, take children or parents and deport them and split the family up,” he said. “On the other hand, those folks know that when they cross the border illegally, there’s consequences to that, and they have to take a little bit of ownership in that.”

As the Trump administration increases its crackdown on illegal immigration and law enforcement agencies in Ohio try to keep up, one thing is clear: If an unauthorized immigrant is taken into custody by a law enforcement agency or is sitting in a cell at a jail or prison, their days in the U.S. are likely numbered.

“If they were here illegally,” Doak said, “we would probably be contacting ICE.”

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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The word "fraud" is likely to circulate in the upcoming Minnesota legislative session. One political expert said state agencies are being targeted but the response requires careful thought.

The recent Feeding our Future scandal has spurred demand for more oversight of government spending in Minnesota. There are renewed concerns about organizations claiming to provide various medical services but engage in phony Medicaid billing.

Tim Lindberg, associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota-Morris, said larger entities are making a more coordinated effort to defraud key agencies. He pointed out it mirrors global crime rings preying on consumers.

"There is some legitimate concern out there but it is also a global phenomenon that is increasing in size and importance," Lindberg observed. "I think government from the top down needs to sort of figure out a new way to deal with this."

Lindberg pointed out the state has investigative resources and internal controls but he thinks the public sector at large likely has some outdated monitoring approaches, especially as technology evolves. He argued it is important to remember agencies in the spotlight are helping people in need who are not part of these scams, and even with the best controls, completely eliminating fraud is impossible.

The cases have garnered headlines and since Democrats have the upper hand in controlling Minnesota government, Lindberg predicted Republicans will use the trend as part of their push for restrictions or cutbacks. He believes Democrats might agree to certain moves to win back public trust but stressed fraud against government is not a partisan issue.

"People doing these frauds, they don't care who's in office," Lindberg asserted. "They don't care who's in power. And Republicans and Democrats themselves have been in various levels, in various states, overseeing governments where this happens."

Taxpayer dollars are at the center of what's happening. Lindberg added the private sector must also mitigate fraud with steps like major retailers locking up essential items in cases. He suggested lawmakers have to avoid veering off-path.

"What are these ways in which government can work better, more efficiently, but also not eliminate the benefits that these programs are designed to do?" Lindberg asked.


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Four east Texas communities will share more than $1 million in grant money to upgrade their radio infrastructure systems.

The grants are funded by House Bill 442 from 2011 and construction is slated to start next year.

Lindsay Vanderbilt, director of communications for the East Texas Council of Governments, said smaller communities do not have the budgets to upgrade equipment regularly and the funds will improve security for first responders and the community.

"It's kind of a lot of technology that people don't think about," Vanderbilt pointed out. "In the governmental world, these are systems that are in place to handle emergency response and to back up that response system for safety. "

The projects will take place in Rains, Harrison and Van Zandt counties and the City of Kilgore.

Funds in the State Emergency Radio Infrastructure program are distributed by the governor's office. Vanderbilt noted the council of governments is the primary planning entity for 911 communications in 14 east Texas counties.

"It's very common for these opportunities to get proposed to us by the state, and then we connect with our local governments and we reach out to them to see who has needs and who would be eligible to apply," Vanderbilt outlined.

She added the Rains County project will address a serious communications problem.

"They're currently having severe operability issues and it's actually keeping their officers and their dispatch from being able to communicate effectively all the time," Vanderbilt observed. "That's a safety risk for the officers, it is for the public."

Other projects include construction of new Motorola towers and expansion of the TX-WARN program, which works with water and wastewater utilities during system outages.


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A new study provides New York State with an outline of necessary updates to its school funding formula.

The Rockefeller Institute study called for improving several areas such as the Regional Cost Index, which has not been updated in 18 years. Other focus areas include the poverty metric, which does not give a comprehensive picture of students' needs.

Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children of New York, said other updates should have been considered.

"We're disappointed that there are no recommendations to add weight for students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care so that schools can better meet their needs to provide per-pupil funding for preschoolers in pre-K and 3-K," Levine explained.

She added the provisions could be passed through bills introduced by lawmakers.

More than 155,000 New York State public school students were homeless during the 2022-2023 school year. Of those, 120,000 were New York City Public School students. Columbia University found the current Foundation Aid formula uses poverty numbers from the 2000 Census and cost-of-living averages from 2006.

The Rockefeller Institute study suggested numerous ways for lawmakers to update the school funding formula. However, Levine argued some of them must be assessed for their efficacy, including a recommendation to update the poverty measure and provide a different way to measure it.

"The study provides a few different ways of doing that," Levine observed. "The study notes one of the proposals for how to change that weight would result in New York City seeing a projected decrease of around $392 million."

Other recommendations in the report included using a scaling aid approach to better supply funding for students with disabilities, a new adjustment based on instruction service hours for English Language Learners and letting school districts use Foundation Aid dollars for general education purposes, rather than regimented direct spending.


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