a Better Bubble™
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the North Dakota Monitor. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.
Ever since North Dakota voters created an ethics watchdog agency seven years ago, dubious lawmakers have pushed back against giving it power to actually keep an eye on state officials.
That was true in the session that just ended, as legislators shut down many requests from the Ethics Commission, keeping the agency on a modest budget and rebuffing measures that would have given it more latitude in its investigations.
The offices of the governor and attorney general also argued during the session that the state constitution does not permit the commission to create or impose penalties for ethics-related violations.
“I was hopeful that the tide was turning,” said Rep. Karla Rose Hanson, a Democrat from Fargo and member of the Appropriations Committee, which worked on the commission’s budget. “But my general perspective is that the legislative body as a whole, specifically the majority party, is very hostile to the Ethics Commission and their work.”
North Dakotans, fed up with what they saw as ethical lapses by public officials, voted in 2018 to amend the state constitution and create the Ethics Commission. The amendment set rules for public officials and empowered the commission to both create more rules and investigate alleged violations related to corruption, elections, lobbying and transparency.
North Dakota was one of the last states to establish an ethics agency and since then, the commission has struggled to fulfill its mission, the North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica reported this year. The amendment left some ambiguity about the commission’s role and whether it can enforce ethics laws, leading to ongoing disagreements about how it operates.
State leaders’ actions this year further hamstrung the agency at a time when public officials across the country have been working, in various ways, to reverse or rein in policies created through citizen-led ballot initiatives, including those related to abortion and employee benefits.
Danielle Caputo of the national nonprofit Campaign Legal Center said several state governments have worked to undermine ethics initiatives in particular. North Dakota leaders’ assertions this year that the ethics agency cannot punish officials for wrongdoing is another example of that, she said.
“We have seen what appears to be a concerted effort in those states to overturn ballot initiatives or to twist their language in a way that’s most beneficial to those who want less enforcement,” said Caputo, whose organization has studied the issue. She said North Dakota is “one of the more egregious examples of that that I’ve seen.”
In an email to the North Dakota Monitor and ProPublica, the governor’s office called Caputo’s take a “gross mischaracterization” and said the governor does not oppose the Ethics Commission. In a separate email, Chief Deputy Attorney General Claire Ness called the notion that the attorney general’s office is undermining the intent of voters “unimaginable.”
As government officials debate the commission’s authority, North Dakotans have reported more concerns about ethics violations to the agency this year than in any other. The commission as of late May had received 72 complaints this year. There were 41 complaints filed in all of 2024.
By the end of last month, the commission had 63 pending complaints, some of which date back to 2022. The agency — which has three full-time staff members and five commissioners who receive a small stipend to oversee the work — has yet to disclose whether it has substantiated a complaint. (State law requires that the commission keep complaints confidential until the end of the process, so little is known about the nature of the filings.)
The Ethics Commission supported legislation this session that it said would have overhauled its process to speed up investigations and allow it to close cases sooner.
Under the measure, sponsored by eight Republicans and two Democrats, the commission would have been able to settle and dismiss complaints at any time instead of at only certain stages in the complaint process. It also would have been allowed to investigate alleged ethics violations without someone filing an official complaint. The agency currently cannot investigate some North Dakotans’ tips because they must be submitted as formal complaints, which some complainants are uncomfortable doing, agency staff have said.
Staff from the offices of Gov. Kelly Armstrong and Attorney General Drew Wrigley, both Republicans, testified against the bill because they said it would have given the commission too much power.
Faced with strong opposition from state leaders and their own reluctance to give the agency more authority, the House voted overwhelmingly to reject the legislation. Most of the House sponsors voted against it.
Rep. Austen Schauer, a West Fargo Republican who chaired the committee that worked on the legislation, acknowledged tension between the Ethics Commission and the legislature and oppositional testimony from the executive branch.
“The bill was basically DOA, and we just had to move on,” Schauer said.
Lawmakers instead settled on tweaks to the existing process; one requires the commission to develop time management standards and another allows it to informally settle ethics complaints with the accused. Those settlements would only be made public if all parties to the agreement consent.
“There’s people that for years have been sitting with this complaint over their head, which is absolutely unfair,” said Rep. Mike Nathe, a Bismarck Republican who has criticized the commission and proposed some of the changes. He also said he thinks the commission’s caseload includes fake complaints submitted by North Dakotans who want to “weaponize” the system against their political opponents. (Because state law requires that the commission keep complaints confidential, this claim cannot be verified.)
Rebecca Binstock, the Ethics Commission’s executive director, said the agency will look for ways to work around the hurdles that continue to slow down the investigation process. “The Commission must now consider how to fix the process absent legislation,” Binstock wrote in an email.
Rebecca Binstock, executive director of the North Dakota Ethics Commission, said the agency will seek ways to overcome hurdles slowing its work without legislation. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)The legislature also approved a measure that protects its members from prosecution for voting on something that would provide them with a financial benefit as long as they disclose their conflicts.
Lawmakers, some of whom said they want to keep the commission small out of consideration to taxpayers, also turned down the agency’s request for $250,000 over the next two years for a fourth staff member who would conduct training and education for the public. That would have allowed current employees to spend more time investigating complaints, agency staff said.
“I don’t recall a discussion with the public being, ‘We’re gonna have a multimillion-dollar branch of government,’” Rep. Scott Louser, a Minot Republican, said during a legislative hearing in April.
State leaders also argued the legislature is the only entity that can create penalties for ethics violations and delegate enforcement of those penalties to state agencies. The commission can only punish officials for wrongdoing if the legislature gives it that authority, they said.
Chris Joseph, the governor’s general counsel, testified this year that if the commission were given the power to both create and enforce penalties, it would be “defining, executing and interpreting its own rules” without oversight from other parts of state government.
The commission, however, says its enforcement authority is implicit in the constitutional amendment. That interpretation could soon be tested. Binstock indicated in an email that commission staff members have wrapped up investigating several cases and are waiting on commissioners to take action, which could include imposing penalties.
Ellen Chaffee, part of a group called the Badass Grandmas that organized the ballot initiative and drafted the amendment, said voters intended for the Ethics Commission to impose punishments for wrongdoing.
“The people who worked on the amendment had understood that the only way to have unbiased follow-up on any violations of ethics rules was for the Ethics Commission to have that responsibility,” she said.
Mike Nowatzki, the governor’s spokesperson, said if the amendment does not reflect what the advocates wanted, “they can always seek to clarify it with another constitutional amendment.”
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Arizona Luminaria. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.
Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. immigration officials have deputized a record number of local police to function as deportation agents, despite repeated warnings from government watchdogs since 2018 that the program does not adequately train and oversee officers.
This expansion of the 287(g) Program is being driven by the administration’s resurrection of a previously abandoned task force model empowering local officers to question individuals’ immigration status during traffic stops and other routine policing. At least 315 departments have signed on to the more aggressive approach, which Immigration and Customs Enforcement abandoned in 2012 amid racial profiling problems and lawsuits.
Overall, ICE initiated 514 new agreements with local law enforcement agencies across 40 states since January. Among the new partners are highway patrol troopers in Tennessee and officers with about 20 Florida agencies, who in recent weeks assisted ICE with the arrest of more than 1,300 people.
“It has been wonderful to see people jump in and be a part of it to make sure that we have not just the authorities that we need to go out there and to work, but also to have the local knowledge and the people in the community that really want to be a part of the solution,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.
ICE officials tout the expansion of the 287(g) Program — named for the section of law that allows the delegation of limited powers to local officers — as a “force multiplier” to accelerate deportations and counter sanctuary policies that limit local cooperation with immigration agents.
But civil liberties experts and immigrant advocates warn such agreements come at a high cost to communities. Bringing on local partners at such a fast pace compounds the concerns, voiced by ICE’s own internal watchdog, that the agency is unable to adequately train and supervise local officers to execute often complex immigration laws. Advocates say police are more likely to engage in racial profiling under these agreements, damaging community trust in local law enforcement.
“Local law enforcement in these jurisdictions have more authority to enforce immigration laws, but they don’t necessarily know just by looking at someone walking down the street or pulling someone over whether they’re an immigrant or not,” said Austin Kocher, a professor at Syracuse University who has tracked the 287(g) Program for 15 years. “There are a lot of people in this country who are going to be affected by this expanded police power, maybe even who aren’t immigrants, but who might get caught up in the system just because police think they’re an immigrant or because they’re conducting enforcement operations in places that affect U.S. citizens.”
As of June 6, local and state police departments had signed 649 agreements to participate in the program, compared to the 135 agreements that were in place in January, according to ICE. An additional 79 applications were pending. A local police or sheriff’s department may have multiple agreements with ICE.
Over several days last month, the Tennessee Highway Patrol sent a surge of cruisers along the streets of south Nashville, pulling over drivers as ICE agents in unmarked vehicles with flashing lights waited next to them. They quickly drew the attention of passersby and activists who recorded video of the arrests.
Local leaders and immigrant advocates alleged the operation violated the civil rights of Nashville residents, noting it focused on areas where Latino immigrants live and involved far more traffic stops in a few hours than officers would typically do in an entire day.
A majority of the 196 people arrested did not have prior criminal records, according to information released by ICE. The agency said 95 had criminal convictions or pending charges. Thirty-one had committed a felony by reentering the country illegally after being previously deported.
“What’s clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm,” Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said. O’Connell pressed ICE to release the names of everyone who had been arrested, prompting House Republicans to launch two congressional investigations into the mayor for allegedly creating a chilling effect on ICE’s work in the city.
Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said the action traumatized immigrant families. “This operation — which was focused on a neighborhood with an established, vibrant immigrant population — reeks of racial profiling and unconstitutional discrimination,” said Sherman Luna, who fled Guatemala to the U.S. with her family following the kidnapping of her sister. Nashville and Davidson County governments, along with community nonprofits, launched a fund to provide emergency support for immigrants “during moments of crisis.”
But federal officials defended the operation and lambasted critics. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a news release, “You would think all public officials would unite around DHS bringing violent criminal illegal aliens to justice and removing them from American communities. However, pro-open borders politicians — like Mayor O’Connell — would rather protect illegal aliens than American citizens.” DHS had included Nashville in a now-deleted list titled “Sanctuary Jurisdictions Defying Federal Immigration Law.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detain a man stopped by Tennessee Highway Patrol at a gas station in south Nashville, Tennessee, in May. The state agency is among the latest to sign a cooperation agreement with ICE. (Seth Herald/Reuters)It’s unclear how many immigration-related arrests can be attributed to the 287(g) Program since Trump took office. ICE officials did not respond to Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica’s request for those numbers. The agency issues monthly reports that selectively highlight arrests for violent crimes but don’t provide arrest totals involving local police partners.
Politics and power are driving the 287(g) Program’s rapid expansion, according to Kocher. Republican-led states, including Florida, are passing laws requiring local police to sign on to the program. In conservative counties, it’s popular to aid Trump’s mass deportation effort. As a result, a large portion of new agencies signing 287(g) agreements are sheriff’s offices, which run county jails.
“Sheriff’s offices are elected,” Kocher said. “Many of them are more than happy to do this, right? But regardless, it’s also a public visibility electoral thing.”
The expansion is not, however, driven by money. In fact, many expenses associated with the federal partnership, such as officer salaries, overtime and transportation, are covered by local agencies and taxpayers, per the agreements.
Local departments can participate in three ways. The jail enforcement and warrant service officer models limit local agencies’ immigration powers to people already being held in local jails and state prisons for other charges. The task force model extends that authority to community policing.
The Obama administration abandoned the task force agreements, deeming other enforcement programs, specifically those allowing local officers to share information with ICE, to be more efficient.
The Trump administration’s decision to resurrect them has drawn sharp criticism. Immigration advocates say it erodes communities’ trust in police, violates constitutional rights and shifts the focus of enforcement from immigrants charged with violent crimes to those who’ve committed minor offenses. They also note it comes as the Trump administration has dismissed civil rights investigations into several local police departments and gutted offices at the Homeland Security and Justice departments that probe police misconduct.
None of the agreements allow local officers to act on their own. They must be supervised or directed by ICE. Local officers are also supposed to receive 40 hours of online training to participate in task force agreements.
However, a 2021 Government Accountability Office report found the program lacked meaningful oversight policies, resulting in police departments violating the agreements and ICE policy.
Participation in the 287(g) Program is strongest in the Southeast, where entire states like Florida are mandating full cooperation with ICE. There were 277 agreements in Florida alone as of June 6, according to ICE’s online database.
But as quickly as it has taken hold in the Southeast, the expansion has so far missed the country’s biggest cities and counties, home to large immigrant populations.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, first row center, stands behind ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan at a press conference where she speaks about a multiagency immigration enforcement operation that ICE says resulted in the arrest of 1,120 individuals and included participation by state and local law enforcement through the 287(g) Program. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Doris Marie Provine, an emeritus professor at Arizona State University and lead author of “Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines,” attributed big cities’ reluctance, in part, to concerns about the costs to police departments and taxpayers.
“From local law enforcement’s perspective, it’s an unfunded mandate,” Provine said. “There has been much more interest in community policing than there was 20 years ago, and that is very directly in conflict with turning local police into immigration officers.”
Since the 287(g) Program first ramped up nearly 20 years ago, it has faced repeated accusations of racial profiling and of creating a chilling effect among immigrant communities, who may be reluctant to report crimes.
Two Justice Department investigations alleged that enforcement under 287(g) agreements led to constitutional violations in North Carolina and Arizona. ICE subsequently pulled their agreements.
In North Carolina’s Alamance County, the DOJ found in 2012, six years after the sheriff signed a 287(g) agreement, that the sheriff’s office engaged “in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing against Latinos.” A federal judge dismissed the case in 2015, following a bench trial, ruling that the DOJ failed to support its claim. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said the department doesn’t comment on past litigation. The sheriff signed an agreement with ICE in 2020 for enforcement in its jail, which remains in effect despite concerns that discriminatory policing practices continue.
In 2013, a federal judge in Arizona reaffirmed the DOJ’s findings and ruled separately that then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies had used race to target Latino drivers and Latino-majority areas with traffic stops and sweeps. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona had filed the lawsuit on behalf of citizens and legal residents caught in the sweeps less than a year after the sheriff signed a 287(g) agreement.
Trump pardoned Arpaio in 2017 of federal contempt charges for disregarding the judge’s ruling.
New Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan has declined to pursue new 287(g) agreements, citing the court’s ongoing scrutiny of the department to ensure officers comply with the 2013 ruling. The cost to taxpayers for the ongoing effort to root out racial profiling in the department had surpassed $300 million as of March.
Sheridan said he values the 287(g) Program but agreed with the judge’s finding that community enforcement under the county’s agreement was “racially biased.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment about its monitoring of local agencies for potential civil rights violations.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “ICE’s 287(g) Program is playing a critical role in fulfilling President Trump’s promise to deport criminal illegal aliens and keep America safe. Dangerous criminal illegals with lengthy criminal records who pose a risk to the American people are detained all the time thanks to partnerships with local law enforcement officers.”
In an April speech to the Arizona Legislature, Tom Homan, Trump’s pick to lead the administration’s mass deportation efforts and a former ICE director, praised Arpaio’s work with ICE. The former sheriff was seated in the front row.
In highlighting ICE’s push for greater collaboration with local law enforcement, Homan rebuffed a common criticism of the 287(g) Program — that allowing police to enforce immigration laws erodes trust between communities and local officers.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing the talking point, ‘Well, we’re a welcoming community, we’re a sanctuary city because we want victims and witnesses of a crime that live in the immigrant community to feel safe coming to law enforcement to report that crime,’” Homan told Arizona lawmakers. “That is a bunch of garbage. A victim and witness of crime don’t want the bad guy back out there either.”
ICE is seeking more funding to expand 287(g) agreements and its detention and deportation capacity. During an appropriations hearing in May, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said the agency would reduce its reliance on private prisons.
“We would much rather partner with a sheriff’s department or a state corrections agency, someone that’s in a state where an individual is arrested that we don’t have to transport all around the country due to lack of bed space,” Lyons said.
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to present Upended, a sculpture installation by multi-disciplinary artist Judith Shaw. This is Shaw’s second solo exhibition with Bruno David Gallery. ‘Upended’ is part of […]
The post Judith Shaw: Upended appeared first on Explore St. Louis.
stLouIST
