States, Sheriffs Puzzle Over Trump’s Error-Filled List of Immigration Sanctuaries
Courts have so far upheld local laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration arrests. California won a lawsuit on the issue in 2017 under the first Trump administration, and the same federal judge issued an injunction saying federal funds couldn’t be withheld on the basis of immigration cooperation during a new trial on the issue.
The national sheriffs’ association president, Sheriff Kieran Donahue of Canyon County, Idaho, said in a May 31 statement that the list “was created without any input, criteria of compliance, or a mechanism for how to object to the designation.” He said it was “an unfortunate and unnecessary erosion of unity and collaboration with law enforcement.” Canyon County was not on the list, though the city of Boise was.
The pushback from sheriffs was a sign of how seriously flawed the list was, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
“The real problem is, how are they defining sanctuary?” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “To have pushback from an association that is typically quite supportive of this administration and their agenda points to problems with definition.”
Watauga County, North Carolina, was on the list when it first appeared May 29 but came off before it was taken down. The county’s congressional representative, Republican Virginia Foxx, said in a Facebook post that she intervened.
In the post, Foxx called it “a mistake … made during the Biden administration that resulted in Watauga County being listed incorrectly as a sanctuary county.” She also said that “Watauga County is no longer listed” after she “contacted DHS.”
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group favoring less immigration, said her list of sanctuary jurisdictions included Watauga based on a June 2024 report from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement listing it as among hundreds of others as “non-cooperative institutions.”
Vaughan said data she requested from ICE shows some counties in North Carolina were still not complying with all detainers this year through early February, but Watauga is not one of them.
“They should probably come off the list,” she said. “None of those sheriffs has contacted me about reviewing their policies or taking them off the map. I would be happy to do so, and have done so frequently with sheriffs in other states.”
Sheriff Len Hagaman of Watauga County told Stateline via email that he had contacted federal immigration officials and confirmed that his county, which voted Democratic for president last year by a 52% to 46% margin, had a solid record of cooperating with immigration arrests.
Hagaman alluded to an April Facebook post by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, calling out Watauga and eight other North Carolina counties as immigration sanctuaries.
“For several weeks now, I, along with other North Carolina sheriffs have had to endure gross and inaccurate misinformation regarding false allegations,” Hagaman wrote.
Tim Henderson covers demographics for Stateline. The article originally appeared in Stateline.
