The Kansas Bureau of Investigation formally agreed to dedicate agents to enhance collaboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the search for people without documentation to legally be in the country.
Under the state-federal partnership, an unspecified number KBI agents would receive ICE training that enabled them to issue immigration detainers, serve warrants for some immigration violations and arrest people allegedly in the United States without authorization.
“The KBI is pleased to have another tool at our disposal to get known criminal offenders out of our communities,” said Tony Mattivi, director of the state law enforcement agency. “This agreement will not shift KBI investigative priorities, but will allow us to more swiftly achieve justice in cases in which the KBI currently focuses.”
The KBI’s authority would stem from a federal law known as Section 287(g). It enabled ICE to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers authority to perform specific immigration officer functions under the federal agency’s oversight.
For example, the program permitted ICE to partner with state and local agencies to identify incarcerated individuals amenable to removal from the U.S. before released into a community.
ICE has comparable agreements with dozens of law enforcement agencies that were initiated during the administrations of Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The national roster included agreements signed in 2020 with the Finney and Jackson county sheriff’s departments in Kansas.
On Monday, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said his office and the KBI signed the agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“All across Kansas, illegal aliens who are dangerous criminals or gang members are released back to the streets on a regular basis. That will end. This agreement will ensure that those criminals are deported,” Kobach said.
This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector.
