Chris Kleinberg, the Sheriff of Dakota County, is set to join 50 other sheriffs on Wednesday (September 5, 2018) to urge for reforms on immigration policies in Washington DC. The sheriffs will call on Congress to move on pending legislation to increase the level of security on the nation’s border. They will then join a White House roundtable discussion later in the day with officials and policymakers in the Trump administration.
Kleinberg says there is an urgent need to bring the immigration laws of the nation up to date, and that the sheriffs intend to tell Congress they have failed for the last 20 years to deal with this issue, which they claim has resulted in communities becoming less safe and undermined their ability to protect the people they were elected by. Kleinberg added that the lack of immigration reform has also affected the burden carried by local tax bases.
The Office of the Dakota County Sheriff asked for permission from federal officials to deputize jailers to enforce immigration laws late last year and was the first such agency to apply for the 287(g) federal program in the state of Nebraska, with just 60 having done so in the US.
Kleinberg has not yet received word on the result of the application, which the Winnebago Tribe and local Latino advocacy group Unity in Action opposed.