The Teton County Sheriff’s Office and the Town of Jackson Police Department have released an open letter on immigration. The letter addresses concerns by residents about the threat of potential immigration raids and changes to deportation policies.
Teton County Sheriff Jim Whalen said the regional department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has no plans to conduct immigration raids in Jackson—not now or in the future. Whalen said if that policy changes, ICE will notify his office and they will let the community know ahead of time, but he does not anticipate that happening.
“There seems to be some hysteria going around that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement were going to change their policies in terms of their enforcement of immigration law,” said Whalen. “And I hadn’t heard anything about that, nor had Chief Todd Smith. So we just wanted to make sure—and we did that in talking to ICE—that their policies hadn’t changed and that everything was status quo at this point in time.”
Whalen says when ICE comes to Jackson, it is to track down known criminals, not to conduct broad sweeps for minor immigration violations.