Add your nameSheriffs should not do ICE's job for them

Posted: June 2, 2025

As members of law enforcement, sheriffs are well-respected members of many communities. We give them the authority to help keep our neighborhoods safe, to assist people in distress, and to step in when our neighbors are being harmed or abused.

But thanks to pressure from Donald Trump's ICE, more and more sheriffs' departments are taking on new and deeply harmful tasks: harassing, detaining, and jailing our undocumented neighbors.

As people of faith, we know that people in positions of authority have a responsibility to act morally -- to care for the poor and powerless, to welcome the stranger, and to build up our communities instead of tearing them apart.

Add your name and tell the National Sheriffs' Association: Serving and protecting our communities means saying NO to ICE.

Sign the petition:

Dear members of the National Sheriffs' Association,

We write to you as faith leaders and people of conscience from across the country, representing many religious traditions, but united in a shared belief: every person is created with sacred worth and should be treated with dignity, compassion, and fairness. Our faiths tell us that with positions of authority comes a responsibility to care for and protect the poor and powerless. This is a mandate that is reflected in your office’s responsibility to keep every member of your community safe. It is for this reason that we write with alarm about the role that sheriffs in your association have played in immigration enforcement efforts that have deprived children of the love and care of their parents, deprived our neighbors of their God-given right to justice, and led to the deaths of migrants in sheriff-run jails.

As the federal government pushes for you to set aside your core responsibilities and take up their campaign for mass deportations, you stand at a crossroads. We call on you to take the righteous path, to withstand this political pressure and hold true to your mission as servants of public safety.
Whether through formal programs like 287(g), informal agreements, or any form of cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), when sheriffs take on the work of the federal immigration system, they sow fear, not safety. They tear families apart, not build trust. And they transform local offices meant to protect the public into instruments of a deeply flawed and often cruel deportation system.

Our congregations include both citizens and immigrants -- documented and undocumented -- who are integral to the life of our communities. We have witnessed the pain and trauma caused when local law enforcement become entangled with ICE: parents afraid to drop their children off at school, survivors of domestic violence too afraid to call for help, workers afraid to report abuse or exploitation. People being arrested for working, people being denied due process, people being abducted from the streets; this is not what a safe and secure community looks like. As sheriffs you know the difference between criminals and the mothers, fathers, students, and workers who are now being sent to dangerous countries and to torture-filled prisons. We cannot help but think the pressure for you to cooperate with this weighs heavily on your conscience.

Many, if not most, of you are people of faith. Scripture and moral tradition teach us to welcome the stranger, to love our neighbor, and to protect the vulnerable. We are called not to instill fear, but to build belonging. We urge you to withdraw support for policies that turn sheriffs into de facto immigration agents, and instead focus on building trust, safety, and community resilience.

You do not have to do ICE’s job. When sheriffs take on the responsibility of federal immigration authorities, it undermines your core mission, stretches already limited resources, and most importantly, causes real harm.

We understand the gravity of your role and the weight of responsibility for the safety of an entire community. It is with this in mind that we call on the National Sheriffs' Association and all of your members to publicly oppose local cooperation with ICE in abducting and deporting vulnerable immigrants and refugees and to affirm that the role of sheriffs is to serve and protect their communities -- not to enforce this federal immigration policy.

This is a moment that demands moral clarity. We pray you will rise to meet it.

Thank you.

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