County commissioners table resolution on ICE cooperation amid public debate

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

A group of Lebanon County residents known as Mondays with Meuser asked Lebanon County Commissioners on Thursday to pass a resolution strongly discouraging county agencies from working with the federal department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Michael Schroeder of South Annville Township asked commissioners, who took no action on the request, to “discourage all county agencies, offices, and officials from engaging in or assisting with the enforcement of non-criminal federal immigration laws.”

“This is not about criminal law. This is about civil law. The great majority of folks who are being detained have done so under civil authority,” Schroeder said. “It’s like a violation of a parking lot ticket, or a speeding ticket. It’s not a criminal offense. So again, I respectfully ask you to consider and adopt this draft resolution.”

The discouragement request is in response to the announcement in early February that the county district attorney’s and sheriff’s offices had signed ICE task force agreements.

Two local law police departments, South Lebanon Township and Lebanon County Regional, also signed agreements with the federal agency in early February, and Cornwall Borough PD is listed as having joined Feb. 23 – although Cornwall’s agreement is not yet live on the Department of Homeland Security’s website.

Following discussion, a motion was presented by commissioner Jo Elllen Litz to accept the resolution but died for a lack of a second by either commission chairman Mike Kuhn or Bob Phillips. 

Kuhn told the roomful of protestors that commissioners would take the resolution under advisement, while Phillips said he’d pass the protestors’ concerns to District Attorney Pier Hess Graf and Sheriff Jeffrie Marley. 

After the meeting, LebTown asked Kuhn what next steps might occur. He said he intends to “talk to the sheriff and the district attorney and see what they have to say on that.”

Schroeder, who is a co-founder of the Mondays with Meuser protest group, was one of several local residents who voiced opposition Thursday to the county’s involvement with ICE. One individual spoke in favor of the county cooperating with the agency.   

Like Schroeder, Tom Maiello of Myerstown also mentioned the civil nature of ICE’s actions when making arrests. 

“As I understand it, ICE detainers are civil requests, not criminal warrants,” Maiello said. “Therefore, honoring them without a judicial warrant can violate Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful searches and seizures, thereby exposing local agencies to legal liabilities and potentially costly lawsuits.”

Lebanon County solicitor Matt Bugli previously told LebTown that, while liability protection is afforded municipal governments while assisting ICE, any liability issue that may arise would ultimately be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool (PCoRP), which is affiliated with The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP), provides liability insurance to Lebanon County. A CCAP spokesman said in an email to LebTown that that question was best answered by county officials.

In response to followup questions, that same spokesperson later emailed a statement saying “Questions of insurance coverage are fact dependent. It is CCAP’s practice to refrain from speculating about hypothetical claims for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons why we suggest contacting Lebanon County is due to the nature of the agreement, particularly if there is an indemnification clause within its terms.”

County administrator Jamie Wolgemuth, asked after the meeting if PCoRP had issued a statement to its members stating whether their liability coverage extends to potential county-involved ICE operation liability claims, answered “no.”

On Monday, Dr. Tom Overholt of Cornwall asked LebTown following the 50th Mondays with Meuser protest at the county municipal building to investigate how many illegal immigrants in Lebanon County have outstanding arrest warrants. On Thursday, he posed that question to commissioners.

Before asking the question, Overholt noted that it’s ICE’s responsibility to “get dangerous criminals off the streets” and deport them. 

“So my question is, how many felons or accused felons have outstanding warrants?” Overholt asked. “How much of a risk am I at?”

Kuhn said he didn’t know if commissioners are aware how many felons with arrest warrants are living in Lebanon County and also are in the United States illegally.

“Before we start inviting ICE in to patrol our streets, don’t we think we should at least have an estimate of what’s going on?” Overholt asked. “And how were those situations handled before ICE decided to have 287(g)s and train our police officers to go look for undocumented immigrants in our county?”

LebTown forwarded Overholt’s question to Graf concerning the number of felons but did not receive an answer prior to publication. 

Overholt asked additional questions that he said should be answered before being involved in ICE operations. 

“Before we launch into a whole group of sweeps and surveillance, I think we should know what the scope of the risk is, how many dangerous criminals are out there, and why can’t our police departments now handle that together with federal agencies,” he said. “My concern is if you start taking money from people, they’re going to make you do stuff because it’s their money.”

That last comment was in reference to reports that the county may receive funding from ICE. A fact sheet provided by ICE states that local law enforcement agencies may receive $7,500 for equipment per trained task force officer, $100,000 for new vehicles per agreement, and reimbursement of salary, benefits, and overtime.

Another opponent of the county’s involvement is Lou Felli of Myerstown, who said he is a former county employee of the sheriff and DA offices. He said a recent national poll shows that 60% of Americans disapprove of the job ICE is doing. 

He also referenced a former ICE instructor who resigned his position because he said new agents are being trained to violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. That statement by the former ICE employee was made before a federal oversight committee, added Felli.

“The normally two-hour lesson on the Fourth Amendment was reduced to about 10 minutes,” said Felli about the testimony. “I ask everybody in this room, is that who we want to train our deputies? To deputize our deputies? Is that who we want?”

County employee and Richland resident Arn Moehlmann said he approves of the county supporting ICE. (Moehlmann attended the meeting using his county employee 15-minute break and comp time, which is permissible since he is a member of the Teamsters union.)

“I would respectfully request our county government … to wholeheartedly work in tandem with ICE, Homeland Security and the Border Patrol, to support them in their mission to deport those people who are here illegally,” Moehlmann said. “Because they’re doing it to protect the general public … (and) uphold the law.”

His next statement concerning election integrity led to a brief moment of disagreement between his remarks and a comment from another meeting attendee.

“People who are here illegally are disenfranchising the American voter and in many cases getting to vote,” Moehlmann said.

Gary Gates of Palmyra said that was an interesting comment and asked Moehlmann if he was joking, to which Moehlmann said he wasn’t. Kuhn immediately interrupted further dialogue, saying these conversations were not up for debate.

Litz later spoke for the integrity of Lebanon County’s election process, saying voter fraud does not happen here.

Poll worker Virginia Noll of Lebanon made a similar statement.

“We get their name, we make sure we have the right person and allow them to vote. If their name isn’t on there, they’re not voting. Okay? So there is no voter fraud that I know of going on in Lebanon County,” Noll said. “And you can ask (county election director) Sean (Drasher) if he has any recollection or any documentation that there has been voter fraud in Lebanon County. So voters in Lebanon County are not being disenfranchised.”

Moehlmann said he was speaking of national elections following Litz’s comments.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C.,-based think tank, maintains a database on its website that highlights approximately 1,500 “proven instances of voting fraud” over the last 20 years. In November 2020, shortly after the presidential election, top federal government officials responsible for election security issued a joint statement that the 2020 election “was the most secure in American history.”

Next meeting

Lebanon County Commissioners meet the first and third Thursday of the month at 9:30 a.m. in Room 207 of the county municipal building, 400 S. 8th St., Lebanon. The next regularly scheduled meeting is on Thursday, March 19.