Northampton County’s ‘full cooperation’ claim clashes with ICE courthouse restrictions

After the Department of Homeland Security kicked up controversy by publishing a list of “sanctuary” governments, Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure (D) reacted with indignation at his county’s inclusion.

“We fully cooperate with ICE,” McClure said in a video aired by a local television station, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Even though DHS would later take down its list, McClure’s statement — full cooperation — is directly contradicted, however, by previous reporting.

A 2020 article from AP reporter Michael Rubinkam was headlined, “Northampton County restricts immigration agents after courthouse arrest.”

“A Pennsylvania county imposed restrictions on U.S. immigration agents Tuesday after a federal officer arrested a man at the courthouse, sparking a heated confrontation that was captured on video,” the article’s lead paragraph said, (emphasis added).

When reached for comment, Northampton County spokeswoman Jessica Berger provided a statement from McClure which again stressed that “Northampton County fully cooperates” with ICE.

“We believe that undocumented individuals who commit crimes should be deported. That is why we go well beyond what most jurisdictions do: Northampton County honors I.C.E. immigration detainers for up to 48 hours. This is a significant and proactive measure, underscoring our commitment to both public safety and lawful cooperation,” McClure said in his statement.

But Berger did not respond to follow-up questions about the 2020 executive order, and the AP’s description of that order as a “restriction.” She also did not respond to questions as to whether she or McClure ever approached the AP to dispute the “restrictions” characterization. Berger had well over a day to respond to the follow-up questions.

The AP said the executive order at issue “prohibits Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting people at the county courthouse or jail unless they have provided county officials with a detainer request and then show up with a warrant signed by a federal judge.”

ICE has maintained that a signed federal warrant has never been legally required.

The matter takes additional significance given that McClure, a Democrat, is a candidate for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, a seat currently occupied by Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.

According to previous media reports, McClure said the county was already working on the order, but an incident in which an illegal immigrant was arrested at the county courthouse when showing up for a DUI hearing pushed the county to act.

The entire affair in Northampton County spotlights an emerging frontier in the debate over the “sanctuary” designation.

Traditionally, a jurisdiction was considered “sanctuary” if it declined to honor ICE detainer requests — that is, if local law enforcement refused to hold individuals beyond their scheduled release from a municipal or county jail solely for ICE pickup.

Now, the controversy has broadened to include whether ICE agents can access public facilities — like courthouses — to arrest individuals based on administrative warrants, which are not signed by judges and do not carry the same legal authority as judicial warrants.

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s website has a helpful transcript of an interview that discusses the two main types of documents at issue — a “removal” warrant, which is the same as an “ICE” warrant, and a criminal warrant, signed by a judge.

The removal warrant isn’t as robust as a full-fledged criminal warrant when it comes to taking someone into custody.  “[T]he administrative removal warrant authorizes the ICE officer to arrest the subject, but not to enter into [a protected zone] such as his or her home unless consent to enter is given. If the officer does not have consent to enter, even if the officer knows the person subject to the warrant is inside the home, the officer has no legal authority to enter the home pursuant to that removal warrant.”

Jurisdictions that require a judicial warrant for ICE to make courthouse arrests — like Northampton — effectively limit such arrests to individuals who are also facing separate criminal charges. Since most undocumented immigrants are not under criminal prosecution, the policy significantly reduces ICE’s ability to detain them in these settings.

Supporters of the type of restrictions Northampton and other jurisdictions have implemented say the efforts to stop courthouse arrests are necessary because they put a chill on the judicial system. They argue, for example, that an illegal immigrant who might not be accused of any crime but is a key witness in a criminal trial might not agree to testify for fear of being arrested.

An online memo from 2020, the last year of the Trump administration, tried to address this subject directly, saying, “ICE officers are sworn federal law enforcement officers who operate within the confines of the law. Section 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides ICE officers the authority to arrest aliens without a judicial warrant.”

Still, the tactic of requiring judicial warrants has been referred to as one adopted by “Democratic” majority states or jurisdictions, 

For example, an AP report from last week said that “In California alone, more than a dozen pro-immigrant bills passed either the Assembly or Senate this week, including one prohibiting schools from allowing federal immigration officials into nonpublic areas without a judicial warrant.”

What differs from the California examples above and Northampton’s executive order is that California sought judicial warrants for arrests on public properties such as schools or libraries, while Northampton’s sought a judicial warrant for arrests at the county courthouse.

That same AP report also noted that “[California] Republicans said the measure was ‘injecting partisan immigration policies into schools.”

“We have yet to see a case in California where we have scary people in masks entering schools and ripping children away,” said state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, a Democrat who turned Republican in 2024. “Let’s stop these fear tactics that do us an injustice.”

Rep. Ryan McKenzie, the Republican incumbent of the 7th Congressional District alleged earlier this year that Northampton had been less than cooperative in ICE’s effort to gain custody of “a suspected Venezuelan gang member who was being released from the county prison last month.”

The race for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District against McKenzie is certain to be competitive. Carol Obando-Derstine, a regional affairs director for an electric utility, will face McClure in the Democratic primary. 

Even when judicial warrants are used, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will ameliorate any controversy. The tense flare up between ICE and citizens of Los Angeles over the weekend happened in part as ICE was in possession of a judicial warrant and attempting to arrest a worker, but was blocked by a union president, according to CBS News.

Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports