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ACLU says Ohio ICE detentions are illegal, demands the release of hundreds
Ohio Capital Journal ^ | September 1, 2025 | MARTY SCHLADEN

Posted on 09/01/2025 6:58:39 AM PDT by buckalfa

In light of an opinion issued Tuesday by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, the American Civil Liberties Union said that eight Ohio counties don’t have legal contracts with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement. That being the case, the ACLU of Ohio said, those detainees must be released.

However, one Ohio sheriff’s office said its contract with the feds meets the legal standards Yost laid out. Another said he’ll fix any problems, but he’s not releasing anybody.

For its part, Yost’s office declined to answer questions.

After taking office in January, President Donald Trump swiftly began implementing his policy of mass deportation. It was sold on promises that he would throw out violent criminals, but only 7% of those deported have been convicted of violent crimes.

Meanwhile, stories are accumulating of dodgy cases against beloved asylum seekers. Claims of human rights abuses are mounting. And some economists predict that removing so many from the workforce will make already-high inflation even worse.

Once a strong issue for Trump, by mid-July, just 35% of Americans approved of his handling of immigration, according to a Gallup Poll.

But regardless of the issue’s popularity, Ohio sheriffs have an incentive to take in ICE detainees. They get $125 per-person, per-day, while the feds cover most of their non-food expenses. That revenue has helped fill gaps in their budgets, one Ohio sheriff said.

In an opinion published Tuesday, Yost seemed to raise doubts about the legality of at least some of the arrangements. In response to a query from the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, the attorney general said county jails could hold ICE detainees longer than 48 hours, and they could provide services such as transport — but only under contracts between the feds and the county commissioners.

“The board of county commissioners may enter into an agreement with federal immigration authorities, on behalf of the sheriff, to detain aliens subject to removal in the county jail,” the opinion said. “The sheriff, however, does not have independent contracting authority for this purpose.”

At least two of the eight Ohio counties contracting to hold ICE detainees — Butler and Mahoning — are doing so after modifying contracts to hold prisoners on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service. The ACLU of Ohio on Wednesday said that wasn’t sufficient.

“Attorney General Yost has made abundantly clear that all county agreements with ICE must be authorized by the board of county commissioners,” Freda Levenson, the group’s legal director, said in a written statement. “County sheriffs cannot bootstrap themselves into having this authority. Striking these agreements means there is no legal authority to hold the immigrants currently incarcerated in our county jails. The people detained under these invalid agreements are being held unconstitutionally and must be released immediately.”

The attorney general’s office was asked if the ACLU was correct in saying that Yost’s ruling meant that hundreds of detainees were being held in Ohio illegally. It declined to answer.

“Your question is different than the specific question asked by the Butler County Prosecuting Attorney and we offer no answer in response — our office does not issue legal opinions or guidance to nonclients,” Steven Irwin, a spokesman, said in an email. “The opinion issued to the Butler County Prosecuting Attorney addressed a specific, narrow question on a positive power of government. We have nothing more to say at this time.”

The ACLU said eight county sheriffs offices had improper ICE agreements: Those in Butler, Fairfield, Fayette, Geauga, Lake, Portage, Mahoning and Seneca counties.

However, Butler County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Anthony E. Dwyer on Thursday said county commissioners there had signed off on his department’s arrangement with the feds. He sent along the commissioners’ resolution approving the modification of a contract to take in prisoners of the Marshals Service to also allow the jail to take ICE detainees.

“We got that agreement signed off on by the county commissioners,” Dwyer said in an interview. “The ACLU is a little mistaken about what they’re saying about Butler County.”

He added, “People have regularly come to commissioners meetings and talked about it, so it’s shocking that they’re that far behind that they don’t know that.”

Butler County housed 303 ICE detainees on Thursday. Mahoning County Jail in Northeast Ohio houses around 100 on a normal day.

Sheriff Jerry Greene was asked whether Yost’s opinion affected the legality of their detention.

“The answer is I don’t know at this point,” he said in an interview Thursday. “I’m not sure if the commissioners would be considered as officially parties to the contract. When we put it together, they were definitely in the know and we informed them every step of the way.”

As for the ACLU’s call to release the detainees, Greene was adamant.

“The answer is absolutely not,” he said. “I am doing this to support the federal government. We have housed federal inmates for years. We’re definitely going to make sure we’re constitutional and following the law… but I’m not releasing anybody. We’ll remedy it as soon as possible.”


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: aclu; aclusedition; aliens; americancommunists; communists; deportation; deportations; fredalevenson; ice; ohio; sheriffs; traitors

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The source is a left leaning Ohio news/opinion outlet. That said, mass apprehensions and deportations must occur. Yet will the efforts be all for naught if the t's are not dotted and i's are not crossed?
1 posted on 09/01/2025 6:58:39 AM PDT by buckalfa
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To: buckalfa

ROTFL! Academics are really fond of having low I.Q. subhuman slave laborers surrounding them. It’s their “Constitutional right.”


2 posted on 09/01/2025 7:01:23 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Is this damn country so hard up for Judges that we have to hire Sparkle Sookananan from Trinidad?)
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To: buckalfa

OK, we can keep them or execute them, decide.


3 posted on 09/01/2025 7:03:08 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....TRUMP IS RIGHT AGAIN.)
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To: buckalfa

Demands?


4 posted on 09/01/2025 7:05:10 AM PDT by bankwalker (Feminists, like all Marxists, are ungrateful parasites.)
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To: bankwalker

Legal-it either is or it isn’t. Some folks out there will say black is white.

OJ was set up btw.


5 posted on 09/01/2025 7:10:58 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: buckalfa
...stories are accumulating of dodgy cases against beloved asylum seekers...

Bias? What bias? I don't see any bias.
6 posted on 09/01/2025 7:12:05 AM PDT by ComputerGuy
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To: buckalfa
...dodgy cases against beloved asylum seekers...

WT Actual F?

7 posted on 09/01/2025 7:13:34 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: buckalfa

Yes the leftist bias of the source is quite pronounced. I wonder what a raid on ACLU would reveal


8 posted on 09/01/2025 7:15:22 AM PDT by iamgalt
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To: buckalfa

Yes the leftist bias of the source is quite pronounced. I wonder what a raid on ACLU would reveal


9 posted on 09/01/2025 7:15:24 AM PDT by iamgalt
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To: buckalfa

the ADL-CU strikes again.


10 posted on 09/01/2025 7:18:38 AM PDT by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: buckalfa

ACLU means AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union...

These illegals ain’t American, so the so-called ACLU ain’t got a leg to stand on....


11 posted on 09/01/2025 7:23:07 AM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC.....Patriotically Correct)
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To: sauropod

.


12 posted on 09/01/2025 7:30:35 AM PDT by sauropod
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To: iamgalt

Wordsmithing is more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Wordsmithing just has a much longer and subtle detonation period. The damage caused is awful and ever lasting.


13 posted on 09/01/2025 7:31:56 AM PDT by blackdog ((Z28.310) "Diggin the scene with a gangster lean" (Mayfield, Curtis) )
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To: iamgalt
… I am for socialism, disarmament and ultimately for the abolition of the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is of course the goal.

— Roger Nash Baldwin, ACLU founder, 1935
We all know what a raid on the ACLU will find. We have known for almost a century.
14 posted on 09/01/2025 7:53:44 AM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is goings to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: SaxxonWoods

Choice #3: Each Liberal, Supporter or donor to the ACLU ‘Adopts’ an illegal, houses the illegal(s) with them in any abode that the Liberal resides in at any given time and assumes legal responsibility for each illegal ‘adopted’ for the duration of the illegal’s residence or life in the USA.


15 posted on 09/01/2025 8:05:57 AM PDT by Semper Vigilantis (Peace - through superior firepower.)
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To: Semper Vigilantis

The only one’s that hold the aclu to be influential, respectable and correct are the mentally disturbed and the naive LIB nitwits.


16 posted on 09/01/2025 8:15:35 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: buckalfa

39 were arrested in (Butler county) Fairfield, Ohio recently. They had their own night club! I wish sheriff Jones was in my county. He was doing raids decades ago. Even then the illegals were 12% or so of all arrest. You should have seen the pictures. You are absolutle right about that news outlet. I gave my local editor hell for posting their tripe and lies.


17 posted on 09/01/2025 8:26:20 AM PDT by OftheOhio (never could dance but always could fight - Romeo company)
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To: buckalfa

American Communists Take Liberties Union


18 posted on 09/01/2025 10:14:16 AM PDT by kiryandil (No one in AZ that voted for Trump voted for Gallego )
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To: buckalfa

“...just 35% of Americans approved of his handling of immigration, according to a Gallup Poll...”

If it’s that low, it’s because citizens want to see MORE deportations. /spit


19 posted on 09/01/2025 11:17:28 AM PDT by Flavious_Maximus (Tony Fauci will be put on death row and die of COVID!)
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To: JBW1949

The late great William Buckley name for them was more appropriate: the Anti-Christian Lunacy Union.


20 posted on 09/01/2025 5:28:08 PM PDT by Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi ( Gen. 12:3: a warning to all antisemites)
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