States, sheriffs puzzle over Trump’s error-filled list of immigration sanctuaries

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Immigration officials, their backs turned to hide their identities, pose with an Australian citizen who faces possible deportation back to his home country. A list of “sanctuary” jurisdictions accused of failing to cooperate with immigration arrests was taken down after protests about its accuracy. Photo by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

A list of 14 states, 298 counties and 200 cities deemed immigration sanctuaries by the Trump administration has disappeared from a government website but continues to hang over the heads of officials who face threats of losing federal funding.

“We were placed on a list with many other sheriffs across the nation for no clear reason and no clear cause,” said Sheriff Charles Blackwood of Orange County, North Carolina, a heavily Democratic county that nevertheless complies with a new state law requiring cooperation with immigration arrests.

“The list is gone. Am I satisfied that it was rectified? Yes. Am I satisfied that it’s over? No,” Blackwood said.

The list went up May 29. It called out the “cities, counties, and states that are deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens.” The White House had already threatened “suspension or termination” of federal funds to them.

Along with counties and cities, the list named the whole states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia as “state sanctuary” areas.

There was immediate reaction from some areas, not only Democratic states and counties with court-tested legal policies of declining cooperation with deportation, but also conservative areas mystified by their inclusion.

“We figure it must be some kind of mix-up. We certainly support our fellow law enforcement agencies,” said James Davel, administrative coordinator for Shawano County, Wisconsin, which was included despite no apparent immigration sanctuary policy. The county voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 by more than 67%.

One possible explanation: The county board passed a resolution in 2021 declaring Shawano a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” as a sign of “vigorous support of the peoples’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”

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The list disappeared from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website in a matter of days, after the National Sheriffs’ Association complained that many counties were erroneously included.

“It was quite the debacle,” said sheriffs’ association spokesperson Patrick Royal. “We are working with the administration to resolve as much as we can.”

But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a television appearance that the list would come back and was largely accurate.

“That list is absolutely continuing to be used and it is going to be identifying those cities and those jurisdictions that aren’t honoring law and justice,” Noem said in a Fox News interview June 1.

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.

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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.”

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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.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at [email protected].

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].

This post was originally authored and published by Tim Henderson from Georgia Recorder via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.