The Livingston County Sheriff’s Office has no record of arrests of any undocumented immigrants in the last 18 months, even though the sheriff claims undocumented immigrants are threatening public safety here.
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by a Livingston County resident and shared with the Livingston County Democratic Party found no record of arrests of undocumented immigrants in the county.
The request asked the county to “provide the number, by month, of illegal immigrants, arrested in Livingston County, for crimes committed from January 2023 to June 2024.”
The county denied the request: “Livingston County has thoroughly reviewed its files and has certified that are there are no responsive documents to your request. Our Jail Management System does not store or track illegal immigrants,” the response said.
Despite the lack of any data showing undocumented immigrants are threatening residents, Sheriff Mike Murphy is appearing in a television ad paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee warning about the threat of undocumented immigrants.
“I’ve had the honor of serving in law enforcement for three decades. As sheriff, I see every day how illegal immigration has affected Michigan. I hold Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin accountable,” he says in the ad.
The chair of the Livingston County Democratic Party says Murphy is lying about the presence of undocumented immigrants in Livingston County.
“It’s hard to see how he sees the impact of undocumented immigrants ‘every day’ when for 18 months there is no record of any arrests of such individuals,” said Judy Daubenmier.
The Livingston County Commission is considering a resolution requiring the sheriff’s office to keep track of all contacts with undocumented immigrants and report to the commission periodically.
The commission’s public safety committee approved the resolution at its meeting on Sept. 9.
As evidence of a problem, the resolution relies on a statement made Murphy about the supposed threat of undocumented immigrants. “Earlier this year the Livingston County Sheriff was asked if open borders were impacting his department, he answered, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact it is. We thought we would be immune to this being a midwestern state, center of Michigan, here in southern Michigan, but we’re not.’”
The resolution directs the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office to “document contacts with illegal immigrants regardless of the nature of the contact, and provide periodic reports of these contacts to the Board of Commissioners.”
The resolution does not specify how the sheriff’s office will obtain this information since no one is required to answer questions about immigration status unless asked by an immigration agent. Sheriff’s deputies are not immigration agents.
Nor does it explain what the cost will be of implementing such a program since the sheriff’s office current system doesn’t track such data; how deputies will be trained to obtain this information; how they will respond if individuals refuse to answer; how a person can prove they are here legally; whether they will ask every person they have contact with about their immigration status or only some. It does not limit the data collection to arrests, but covers all contacts, including people are victims of crimes, people in car accidents, people calling 911 for assistance, and so on. Questioning people in such situations about their immigration status could potentially traumatize them more, Daubenmier said.
Daubenmier said the resolution basically is a “show me your papers” proposal that will impact anyone who has contact with the sheriff’s office.
“This also has the potential to result in a racial profiling lawsuit against the county if deputies rely strictly on race to decide whom to question or whom to record as an undocumented immigrant,” Daubenmier said.
“The county is already embroiled in two lawsuits – one for failing to fund the courts and one with Hartland Township over septic receiving station. The taxpayers don’t need to pay for another unnecessary, preventable lawsuit,” Daubenmier said.
In many ways, the resolution could make the county less safe by making residents afraid to report crimes if they think they may be profiled as here without documents.
Opponents of the resolution noted during the call to the public on Sept. 9 that the purpose of the data collection may be to prepare for Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” scheme if he is elected.
The author of the resolution, Wes Nakagiri, has shared a photo of himself at the Republican National Convention holding a sign reading, “Mass Deportations Now.”
Supporters of the resolution at the call to the public on Sept. 9 repeated false claims of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating other residents’ pets, the same inflammatory claim made by Donald Trump in his debate with Vice President Harris and widely debunked and ridiculed afterward. The speakers described the Haitian immigrants as in this country illegally even though they were admitted legally.
The committee referred the resolution to the full commission, which meets next on Sept. 23 at 6 p.m.
