Cheektowaga police called US Border Patrol when they encountered people they suspected of being in the country illegally. | Cheektowaga badge: Cheektowaga Police Department; CBP Badge: DHS; Walden Galleria Mall photo: Cathy Smith/Wikimedia Commons | Illustration: New York Focus
The Cheektowaga Police Department implemented a new training clarifying that officers can only detain people for immigration violations in limited circumstances, following a New York Focus investigation that found some detentions last year may have been illegal.
New York Focus found that police in Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo, called US Border Patrol when they encountered people they suspected of being in the country illegally or whose identification documents they didn’t trust, resulting in at least 15 people being taken into federal custody for immigration proceedings. A state appellate court ruled in 2018 that local police can’t detain people for civil immigration offenses, like overstaying a visa, without a warrant…