The Garfield County Commissioners (BOCC) held their first regular meeting of March at the Garfield County Sheriff Annex outside of Rifle. It was a quick meeting — just over an hour long — with one particularly divisive item on the agenda: a resolution declaring Garfield County as a “non-sanctuary” county.
Commissioner Mike Samson began by thanking legal counsel for helping draft the resolution. “It has been several years since I have had so many phone calls … personal conversations with people who are very concerned about this issue,” he started out.
Samson pointed out that sanctuary cities such as Denver are struggling to keep up with a surge of newcomers arriving over the past several months. “We want to make it perfectly clear that Garfield County is not such,” he stated.
He read the last paragraph of the resolution verbatim: “… The Board of County Commissioners declares that Garfield County is not a sanctuary county and will not directly open shelters or provide services, other than emergency services, to uninvited migrants and/or undocumented immigrants that may arrive in unincorporated Garfield County. Garfield County will continue to prioritize the needs of our local citizens.”
This comes on the heels of the BOCC denying a $50,000 request from the Town of Carbondale to assist with its response in providing displaced newcomers, mostly from Venezuela, with aid.
Tom Jankovsky noted that the commissioners never formally declared Garfield County as a sanctuary county, but that it has been referred to as such on unspecified websites. He assumed this is the case because the Garfield County Jail does not hold undocumented persons for Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they are not also being held on a criminal charge or have posted bond. The practice of holding someone for 48 hours without cause in such an instance is commonly referred to as an “ICE hold.”
Sheriff Lou Vallario gave his two cents over the phone, echoing what Jankovksy had already stated. He noted that the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department used to honor ICE holds, but that changed due to state legislation. Vallario said that the jail still works with ICE and will hold someone for ICE for up to six hours upon “release” from county custody — which Vallario said is the maximum amount of time permitted by the state.
“We work with ICE. We are not a sanctuary county — a sanctuary sheriff’s office. I would argue based on the laws in Colorado, Colorado is in its entirety a sanctuary state,” Vallario stated. “But I have the prerogative to do what I can, and we do as much as we can, to work with ICE.” He thanked the BOCC for considering the resolution.
Jankovsky argued that references to Carbondale and Denver in the proposed resolution should be removed, and it should focus on what Garfield County is doing. Acknowledging Jankovky’s request, Samson put forth a motion to pass the resolution and omit the first seven clauses.
The motion passed unanimously.
“It’s disappointing but not surprising to us that Tom Jankovsky, Mike Samson and John Martin think the immigrant community ‘poses a significant health and safety risk’ to Garfield County despite the decades of contributions our community has given to the Roaring Fork Valley,” Voces Unidas de Las Montañas Chief Executive Officer Alex Sánchez said in a statement. “Their actions are political and do nothing to resolve the barriers that both long-term and new immigrants face in Garfield County. Instead, they merely make clear where they stand — that police and public officials are not here to serve the Latino community. And that is shameful.”
Voces Unidas began circulating a petition which declares that the BOCC was “wrong” to pass the resolution. Visit vocesunidas.org for more information and a copy of the petition.
To view the proposed resolution, which still includes the seven omitted clauses, visit www.tinyurl.com/GarCononsanctuary