Governor Provides Update On State’s Partnership With Federal Immigration Enforcement 

Gov. Patrick Morrisey was joined by legislators and state police officers Tuesday to announce that 60 people have been arrested since the state entered into a partnership with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) earlier this year.

The 287(g) Program authorizes ICE to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight. Morrisey ordered support for President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 “Securing Our Borders” executive order in February. In August, he announced the signing of agreements with ICE for the state Department of Corrections, the West Virginia State Police and National Guard.

The governor said he was eager to join the 287(g) program and do more for West Virginia, which he considers a border state.

“When Joe Biden was busy opening up the border, letting millions and millions of undocumented aliens walk through, I knew when I was the state attorney general, that was wrong, and you may remember that I talked a lot about that issue, and I even knew that there was more that West Virginia could do to help stop the problem,” Morrisey said. “We were a border state, when you factored in all the illicit fentanyl that was flooding in, and people said, ‘No, there’s not many arrests. Ah, there aren’t many undocumented aliens.’ We knew better.”

The governor said 23 arrests have been made in just over a week, with 18 arrests made on Saturday alone thanks in part to traffic enforcement around Bridge Day that resulted in the arrest of nine undocumented individuals. 

“We had a similar dynamic near I-79 where state police and ICE also arrested an additional nine illegal immigrants, bringing the total to 18 this weekend,” Morrisey said. “When you factor in an Oct. 12 operation on the West Virginia Turnpike that led to five arrests, that’s how you get to the 23. That’s significant for a state like this.”

Almost all of the state’s 287(g) arrests have been made during traffic stops.