ACLU files federal complaint about 287(g) program in Frederick County

Jul. 13—The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland filed an administrative complaint Tuesday, asking the federal government to investigate whether the Frederick County Sheriff's Office 287(g) program should continue.

The complaint was submitted to the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, an ACLU press release said.

The federal 287(g) program permits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to train law enforcement officers to inquire about the immigration status of those booked at jails.

In Frederick County, only correctional officers are trained to ask about the immigration status of inmates at the Adult Detention Center.

The ACLU's complaint said Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins engaged in "misuse of office" by doing things such as promoting anti-immigrant rhetoric.

"This is not unlike previous allegations and attacks over many years by the ACLU targeting myself personally and the 287(g) program at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center," Jenkins wrote to The Frederick News-Post in an emailed response on Thursday, provided by sheriff's office spokesperson Todd Wivell.

The ACLU's complaint cited comments by Jenkins, as well as his recent indictment on federal gun charges. Jenkins and local firearms business owner Robert Krop were indicted in April on five counts of conspiracy and making false statements to illegally acquire machine guns.

"If true, these allegations show that Jenkins used the power of his office to thwart enforcement of federal laws aimed at ensuring public safety — making it completely inappropriate to delegate responsibility for enforcing federal law to him," the ACLU's complaint said.

Jenkins wrote in the emailed statement Thursday that the ACLU has lobbied against the 287(g) program since it began in the county in 2008 and now "sees an opportunity with the April 5th indictment to pile on and apply even more pressure to end the long-standing successful program in Frederick County."

The ACLU complaint called for the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to investigate the 287(g) program in Frederick County and other things, including alleged racial discrimination and an incident at the Detention Center. Inmates told Telemundo 44 they had to spend the night in human feces.

The sheriff's office investigated the detention center flood, according to a March 27 email from Jenkins to local elected officials. Wivell shared the email on Thursday with the News-Post.

The investigation showed the flood was "gray water" and that "there does not appear to be any feces present in the water," Jenkins wrote in the email.

"The investigation is ... closed. For the record, the photographs showed gray water in the cell block not feces floating in the water," Jenkins wrote in his statement on Thursday.

The ACLU supported a lawsuit against the Sheriff's Office that said two deputies racially profiled a woman named Sara Medrano.

Medrano was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy on July 7, 2018, for a broken taillight, though her legal counsel said it wasn't broken. While she and her family waited on the side of the road, deputies learned she was undocumented and contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though ICE agents didn't come.

Medrano received a $125,000 settlement in 2021, and the sheriff's office agreed to have public meetings about 287(g).

The ACLU filed the complaint this week for several reasons, including the indictment, the March incident at the detention center, and more recent statements by Jenkins about immigration, Naureen Shah, ACLU senior legislative counsel and signatory on the report, said in a phone interview.

The Sheriff's Office held a public steering committee meeting on the 287(g) program in late June.

"There's not been a single complaint regarding racial profiling, discrimination, [or] officer misconduct ... related to the operation of the 287(g) program," Maj. Michael Cronise, the assistant chief of the Corrections Bureau said, at the meeting.

Jenkins reiterated that in his emailed statement on Thursday.

In Tuesday's complaint, the ACLU called the steering committee comment "highly misleading."

As the complaint notes, the deputies involved in the Medrano lawsuit and in another lawsuit, on behalf of Roxana Orellana Santos, were not trained through 287(g).

Santos received a $100,000 settlement in 2020 related to a wrongful arrest lawsuit against the sheriff's office.

"The ACLU continues to cite two alleged profiling incidents that resulted in lawsuits over the years, these had absolutely nothing to do with the 287(g) program," Jenkins wrote in the emailed statement.

But, the ACLU contended that a plaintiff in the Medrano lawsuit, RISE Coalition, "provided evidence of a pattern of racial profiling that was directly influenced by the Sheriff's involvement in the 287(g) program," the complaint said.

When asked by the News-Post about the allegation that 287(g) results in biased policing, Jenkins wrote it was "absolutely false."

"There have been absolutely no complaints of profiling or discrimination alleged within the program operations of the jail-based program," Jenkins wrote.

"It needs to be noted that both the 287g Program and the jail itself have undergone frequent routine inspections and audits by Homeland Security / ICE and independent contractors hired by ICE over the life of the program," Jenkins wrote in his emailed statement. "Every inspection and audit has demonstrated that we have met and exceeded the required federal standards for the program, having earned recognition as a 'Model' 287g Program."

The ACLU complaint said Jenkins engaged in "misuse" of office by inciting anti-immigrant sentiment in public statements in several instances.

One cited in the complaint was Jenkins' appearance on via The Remembrance Project. (Espinoza is the national director of the organization, per LinkedIn).

In the video, Jenkins said "the powers that be in Mexico, through the cartels and the criminal gangs, are doing everything they can to basically kill Americans through illegal drugs" and that it was "chemical warfare."

Jenkins' comments have an effect on deputy conduct, Shah said.

If Frederick County leaders make what the ACLU labeled in the complaint as anti-immigrant comments, "what's the signal that that sends to the deputies who are deciding who to pull over in a traffic stop and how to treat those individuals in a traffic stop?" Shah said.

The complaint recommends that the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties request data from the sheriff's office, meet with community organizations and interview sheriff's deputies, among other things.

One of the office's responsibilities is reviewing and investigating civil rights abuse complaints related to Department of Homeland Security policies.