At the 1/23/26 news conference, County Executive Julie Giordano stated Public Safety as the reason for executing the 287(g) agreement. Sheriff Lewis concurred, adding that avoiding the Minnesota scenario is part of their reasoning. Detaining dangerous criminals at the Detention Center rather than released, when required, keeps them out of society and keeps Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from entering neighborhoods to apprehend them, using the tactics we’ve seen, and many abhor. Sheriff Lewis apparently recognizes the downside of ICE tactics.
But are these tactics being underemphasized? There’s a fear (terror?) among many Wicomico County citizens - native born and naturalized, and legal immigrants. County Executive Giordano and Sheriff Lewis are aware of this fear – expressed by speaker after speaker at public meetings, and amplified by local smashing of car windows, dragging non-violent passengers from cars and stalking of citizens by masked, armed men.
County Executive Giordano did not reference the brutalization of non-violent offenders and LEGAL US CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS. Sheriff Lewis spoke of not repeating Minnesota but declared nothing can be done about federal law enforcement agency tactics.
Commitment to Public Safety while not addressing US Custom and Border Protection’s and ICE’s chaos causing tactics feels naïve, at best. The National initiative doesn’t look like Public Safety but an effort to violently intimidate certain groups of immigrants and citizens who disagree with the administration’s approach.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina when asked about DHS Secretary Noem and the administration’s approach to border control and immigration said:
“She has taken this administration into the ground on an issue that we should all be on board with - border security and immigration. But they have destroyed that for Republicans. Something that got the President elected, they have destroyed it through their incompetence.”
This agreement may result in some violent criminals being rightly removed from our community – but at what cost? Sheriff Lewis has a lifetime body of work that has resulted in deep trust.
Help restore at least a bit of that trust by:
1. Publicly and privately communicating displeasure at any unnecessary violence and intimidation tactics by federal enforcement agencies.
2. Providing accurate statistics regarding violent crime by undocumented immigrants in Wicomico County.
Bruce & Susan Robson
Salisbury residents
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
