‘No one gets caught and released’: Lycoming County commissioners push back on false claims about illegal immigrants
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"Simply put, Lycoming County is not a sanctuary county" -- those were the definitive words of County Commissioner Scott Metzger as he opened an informational presentation on the subject. However some people in attendance at this week's commissioners' meeting were not buying it as they commented on seeing people on the bus or in stores who looked like they didn't belong here.
Referring to a statement that was read into the minutes at a 2018 commissioners' meeting, Metzger continued, "It does not shelter illegal immigrants, nor does it interfere with any law enforcement agency or effort to identify and remove illegal immigrants from our community."
Sheriff Mark Lusk, who was part of the discussion, explained that in some states elected officials, who are not law enforcement, can impose sanctuary county status.
"That can't happen here. If an elected official were to try to block a process that we use with detention, with incarceration, with arraignment, that elected official would be arrested," Lusk said.
All the commissioner boards he has worked with, Lusk said, have never taken that approach.
"Our system doesn't allow for a county elected official such as a commissioner level, saying 'sheriff, catch and release,'" Lusk said.
"Any catch and releasing we do in this county is with a fishing pole. We don't do it with bad guys," he added.
The procedure that law enforcement follows, Lusk said, is that if an individual with an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detainer is apprehended, law enforcement contacts the ICE unit that is located on Reach Road.
"It would be for them to decide how they handle it. It's not for me to tell them how to handle their fugitives any more than it is for them to tell me how to handle ours," Lusk said.
"But no one gets caught and released. We simply don't do it," he said.
The issue that was on the mind of many of the people in the room was the perception that there is an immigration problem in the county, which is driving violent crimes.
"We don't see it. We don't have any sense of it at all, that we have (an immigration problem)," Lusk said.
Of the 7,000 warrants that the sheriff's department has served in eight years, Lusk said that there were no ICE detainers attached to any of them.
"We have a big problem in this county and it's not immigration. It's what you're reading in the paper. It's the murders we're seeing and the dope-related murders that you're seeing that are slaughtering people. It's not the ICE detainers," he said.
"ICE lodges detainers on individuals who have been arrested on criminal charges and who ICE has probable cause to believe are removable non-citizens. The detainer asks the other law enforcement agency to notify ICE before a removable individual is released from custody and to maintain custody of the non-citizen for a brief period of time so that ICE can take custody of that person in a safe and secure setting upon release from that agency's custody," according to their website.
Comments from people at the meeting, some wearing clothing with the Lycoming Patriots logo on them, challenged what they were being told and at one point the discussion devolved into a contentious back and forth between a woman and Commissioner Mark Mussina.
The woman related a story about speaking with someone working in a local grocery store in Loyalsock Township who said that she had seen people who she claimed were from other countries, coming in the store.
"At different times she has seen a main majority of Hispanic-speaking people one day and a lot of Chinese, whether they're Communists or not coming in on other days," the woman said.
"And she says they have smartphones. They have debit cards and we know what the administration has done with this," she claimed. She also shared an incident where she described a woman who looked like she was from India panhandling in a parking lot in Montoursville.
"Can I ask you a question? Have you ever seen a white person panhandle," Commissioner Mark Mussina asked her.
The woman countered that she had, but only in Las Vegas. When asked by Mussina if she'd ever seen a white person with a smartphone or a debit card she accused him of trying to be smart.
"When you said the Chinese person had a smartphone and a debit card...I don't understand what makes that a problem," Mussina said.
The woman then backpedaled, saying that she hadn't actually seen those people herself, but that she was sharing what had been told to her by the grocery clerk.
"She was talking about it. She said something was going on in Loyalsock Township," she said.
Mussina persisted in trying to clarify why she had an issue with someone who wasn't white or spoke a different language and had a smartphone and used a credit card.
"What's the issue with that," he asked.
"This is not a racial thing. We're here because we're getting the illegals and we're worried about that," a man in the audience interjected.
"You know why I'm saying that? Because every person that she mentioned was Hispanic, Chinese or Indian. The reason it sounds racial is because every person she brought up was of a different race," Mussina countered.
"Just because you're around Hispanic people who look Hispanic or Chinese people who look Chinese who speak a different language, it doesn't make them criminals and it doesn't make them illegal," Mussina said.
The back and forth continued, at times contentious as the man who had said it wasn't a racial issue claimed that there's "an illegal invasion coming on and these people just happen to look different and they fit what's coming across the southern border."
"I didn't go to war to fight for this country to put up with this bull crap...these illegals are coming in here," he contended.
At this point, Metzger brought the discussion back to how illegal immigrants are handled in the prison system, which Lycoming County Prison Warden Brad Shoemaker addressed.
"Any person that is brought to the county prison by law enforcement, we have to have a legal hold. That doesn't matter who they are," Shoemaker said.
"We need a legal commitment. If a person is brought to our door and attached to that legal commitment is an ICE request for hold, we will accept the person on that warrant with the ICE hold. Once that warrant is satisfied and the person is no long needed to be in our custody, we contact ICE to allow them to assume custody of that person," Shoemaker explained.
"That's a practice that's been in place for over 10 years," he added.
There were also questions about flights into the airport, which some have claimed are secretly bringing in illegal immigrants. Not happening, said Metzger, citing video footage which shows no such activity.
He also directly addressed a man who said that there is "an influx of people that aren't native or original to our area," which he claimed were illegal immigrants.
"How do you know they're illegal? What I've heard is, 'Well, they look different.' I've heard that from several people. Just because someone looks different, doesn't mean they're illegal," Metzger said.
"We welcome anyone to this country that is legal. What we're talking about is illegal people coming from the southern border," Metzger continued. "But … when anyone says, 'Well, they look different' -- that's wrong. And it's not welcoming and it's not helping anyone in the community," he said.
The commissioners and other members of the Prison Board are planning to address the county's wrongful designation as a sanctuary county at upcoming meetings.
A sobering comment on all the calls the commissioners received about the sanctuary county issue came from Mussina.
"There's been more outrage in our office this week over Lycoming County being listed as a sanctuary (county) on some website than there was that a 15-year-old kid got shot in the Friday's parking lot," Mussina said.