To lead ICE, Biden picks sheriff who criticized Trump policies

President Joe Biden has nominated a critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies to run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the federal government’s most polarizing agencies.

The White House announced that Biden’s pick for ICE director is Harris County, Texas, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, a veteran law enforcement officer who transformed the sheriff’s office in the Houston metropolitan area from one of the agency’s staunchest allies into a reluctant partner.

Gonzalez withdrew his department from a voluntary federal program that for years helped to detain and deport immigrants, and has expressed concern that involving local law enforcement in civil deportation efforts “silences witnesses & victims” by making immigrants afraid to report crimes.

“I do not support #ICERaids that threaten to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom do not represent a threat to the U.S.,” Gonzalez said in a tweet in July 2019, amid reports of immigration roundups. “The focus should always be on clear & immediate safety threats. Not others who are not threats.”

Gonzalez runs the third largest sheriff’s office in the United States, with approximately 5,000 employees and a $571 million annual budget. If confirmed, he would take over a federal agency with more than 20,000 employees worldwide and an $8 billion-a-year budget.

Gonzalez’s nomination comes at a pivotal time for ICE, which a Pew Research Center survey found had a lower approval rating last year than the Internal Revenue Service. Hundreds of sanctuary cities and towns have limited their cooperation with the agency or refused to work with it at all. And some liberals have called for the Biden administration to abolish ICE.

ICE is best known for arresting and deporting people for civil immigration violations such as overstaying their visas or working without legal papers. But the agency also works on criminal investigations, such as drug or human trafficking cases that can target U.S. citizens, via its Homeland Security Investigations division.

ICE has long contended that, away from the nation’s borders, most detainees are taken directly from state prisons or county jails after being arrested for crimes, in keeping with its mission to improve public safety. But critics say they have detained and deported thousands of immigrants for minor offenses such as traffic stops.

ICE jails are holding approximately 15,000 detainees, among the lowest levels in years, and deportations from the interior of the United States plunged during the pandemic.

The Biden administration has signaled that it wishes to reform ICE, not abolish it, and Gonzalez is an example of how the agency’s relationships with local police can change.

Before Gonzalez’s election in 2016, Harris County was one of ICE’s most steadfast partners in immigration enforcement. Officials pioneered the federal agency’s Secure Communities program, which allows immigration officials to scan the fingerprints of anyone arrested to see if they are in the country illegally.

Harris County also enrolled in ICE’s voluntary 287(g) program, which deputizes local police to search inside the county jails for inmates eligible for deportation.