Two of Philadelphia’s collar counties stopped honoring ICE detainer requests in jails this month. Collaboration had long been a practice.

Montgomery County officials announced last week they would no longer honor ICE detainers in the county correctional facility if they were not accompanied by a judicial warrant.

The county was the second in the region to make the change this month, highlighting the choices Democratic-led counties are facing as they encounter dueling pressures from President Donald Trump’s administration and progressive activists who want officials to take a forceful stance against his agenda.

Though Montgomery County officials said they had been working on the detainer policy change for weeks, the announcement followed days of outcry after an undocumented mother who, with her child in the vehicle, had allegedly rammed her car into a romantic partner’s car was picked up by ICE as the county held her for four hours after she made bail.

The incident came amid a wave of protest both locally and nationally — including escalating tensions in Los Angeles — of Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement policy.

But the woman’s arrest was not a result of Trump’s heightened enforcement. Instead, it highlighted a form of immigration enforcement that has been used for decades, under administrations on both sides of the political aisle. County officials who accept detainer requests agree to hold individuals detained for other reasons for up to 48 hours waiting for ICE agents.

These detainers are voluntary for local law enforcement, and federal courts have found that local governments are not obligated to honor ICE detainers, and that they can be held liable if a court finds the detainment violated an inmate’s rights.

In the last two weeks, half of Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania collar counties, Montgomery and Delaware, took steps to stop accepting those detainers if they do not come with a warrant.

If immigration enforcement officials are aware that undocumented immigrants are currently detained in a local jail or prison, they have the ability to ask law enforcement officials across the country to hold those people for 48 hours after their scheduled release to give agents time to pick them up.

A U.S. federal appeals court found in 2014 that these requests are voluntary and that local governments are not obligated to honor them. Further, it found that if an inmate is determined to have been wrongfully detained, the local government is liable.

As a result of that case, Lehigh County paid a $95,000 settlement to a New Jersey-born citizen who had been wrongfully detained in 2010.

Keith Armstrong, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said that case and other instances when local governments have been sued after honoring detainers should push local governments to give up the practice.

“It makes sense, both from a human perspective and from a financial perspective, for counties not to honor them,” Armstrong said.

Ricky Palladino, an immigration attorney who has been practicing in the Philadelphia region, said he had seen all of Philadelphia’s suburban collar counties honor ICE detainers in recent years, but could not speak to recent months.

“I’ve seen all of the collar counties, every single one of them, honor detainers,” Palladino said. “I have trouble understanding how they couldn’t. It’s clearly in the federal regulations. They get the notification from one law enforcement agency to another, and they typically honor it.”

Since becoming a sanctuary city in 2014, Philadelphia has refused to honor an ICE detainer if it is not accompanied by a judicial warrant. But official policies have varied across the rest of the region.

Since 2014, Montgomery County has held inmates for an additional four hours after they make bail, giving federal agents the opportunity to arrive and arrest them. The Democratic-led county is in the process of changing that policy to instead hold inmates for a maximum of 24 hours only if ICE obtains a judicial warrant.

Until this month, Delaware County held inmates for 48 hours when requested by an ICE detainer. The county’s executive director, Barbara O’Malley, changed that policy this year after consulting the county council, made up entirely of Democrats.

As of June 2, the county stopped holding inmates requested on detainers once they have satisfied all other conditions for release. This change, a county spokesperson said, was made “as a result of deep concerns with the likelihood of provision by the federal government of due process for individuals.”

A Chester County spokesperson told The Inquirer that the county does not hold individuals solely on ICE detainers and that inmates are not detained for additional time if they were initially arrested for another reason.

In a statement, a Bucks County spokesperson said the county does not hold inmates who are eligible for release solely on the basis of an ICE detention request. The county, he said, will hold inmates after they are eligible for release if there is a warrant or court order.

A Temple Law School report in 2019 said Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties each held inmates for four hours after they had made bail. In a response to that report, Chester County’s solicitor at the time told researchers that it is neither policy nor practice for the county to hold inmates past their scheduled release time. Chester County’s CEO reaffirmed that in an email Thursday, clarifying that inmates are released upon making bail. Researchers noted that their data in the 2019 report came from public records requests submitted to ICE.

A Bucks County spokesperson was unaware whether the county had ever had a four-hour-hold policy or, if the policy had changed, when it did.

A 2015 Temple Law School report found that 32 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties did not honor ICE detainers. That list, however, included counties that honored detainers for a limited period of time, like Bucks and Montgomery, and Delaware County which, as of last year, honored detainers for the full 48 hours.

Jennifer Lee, a Temple Law School professor who led both reports, said that often there is no consequence for violations of policies against honoring ICE detainers.

“People found ways to still notify ICE and work with them informally around detainer policies,” Lee said.

The 2019 report found that in addition to offering ICE time to pick up inmates, several counties across Pennsylvania proactively share inmate lists with ICE, offering the agency the opportunity to determine whether undocumented immigrants may be in the jails.

Officials from Chester and Bucks Counties have said it is county policy to provide ICE with regular information about the prison population.

Bucks County also notifies the agency of pending releases, and its sheriff, Republican Fred Harran, has applied to join a program that would allow his officers to assist ICE more directly.

Even in counties like Philadelphia that do not honor ICE detainers, Palladino noted, ICE can still wait outside jails to detain undocumented immigrants on their way out.

Under Trump’s increased immigration enforcement, Palladino said, prison detainers have become a less significant element of enforcement. ICE detainers have been a part of the agency’s procedures for decades, but under the current administration, Palladino said, he’s seeing more arrests in targeted operations, in courts, and at ICE’s Philadelphia office.

“They’ve certainly transitioned from an agency with a focus on foreign nationals within the criminal context and the use of a detainer to, really, anyone,” Palladino said.