Words like “ICE” and “detainer” are becoming much more common around district court these days.
So what exactly are detainers and how does ICE use them?
If a person is arrested while illegally in the United States, ICE can issue a detainer to the state agency holding him.
The detainer is essentially a request asking the state agency to release the detainee into ICE’s custody if/when his detention over. This may be when the detainee is released on bail or when he completes his sentence.
A detainer is not a court-issued arrest warrant. Instead, it’s merely a request for cooperation from ICE to local and state law enforcement.
For instance, in Commonwealth v. Lunn, the SJC concluded
that court officers in Massachusetts, who have the same power to arrest while on court house premises as Massachusetts police officers, lack authority under either Massachusetts common law or Massachusetts statutory law to arrest an individual pursuant to a request contained in a Federal civil immigration detainer to hold that individual for up to two days after he or she would otherwise be entitled to release from State custody; further, this court declined to adopt, as a matter of Massachusetts law, the theory of inherent authority to carry out such detainer requests as a basis for authorizing civil immigration arrests
Typically the ICE detainer, once issued, stays with the detainee’s mittimus (i.e., the court order directing a jail or prison to detain a criminal defendant either before or after sentencing).
ICE agents who arrive to take custody of the detainee usually have an administrative warrant (form I-200 or I-205) for the individual’s arrest.
For more information on ICE and their recent activity here in the Baystate, see my post ICE in Massachusetts Courthouses.