BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF INDIVIDUAL SHERIFFS AND POLICE CHIEFS 

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MATTHEW J. PIERS (IL #2206161) 

CHIRAG G. BADLANI (IL # 6308523) 

CARYN C. LEDERER (IL # 6304495) 

HUGHES SOCOL PIERS RESNICK & DYM, LTD. 

70 West Madison St., Suite 4000 

Chicago, IL 60602 

Telephone: (312) 580-0100 

Fax: (312) 604-2623 

E-mail: mpiers@hsplegal.com 

Attorneys for Amici Curiae Individual Sheriffs 

and Police Chiefs 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

DONALD J. TRUMP, et al., 

Defendants. 

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Case No. 3:17-cv-00485-WHO 

BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF 

INDIVIDUAL SHERIFFS AND 

POLICE CHIEFS IN SUPPORT OF 

PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR 

PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION 

Date: April 14, 2017 

Time: 2:00 p.m. 

Dep’t: Courtroom 2 

Judge: Hon. William H. Orrick 

Date Filed: March 29, 2017 

Trial Date: Not yet set 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE.................................................................1 

INTRODUCTION..................................................................................2 

ARGUMENT........................................................................................3 

I. The Executive Order Impedes Effective Law Enforcement..............3 

A. Trust and Respect Between Communities and Police Is Essential 

to Effective Law Enforcement, and is Thwarted When Local 

Officers are Forced to Partake in Federal Immigration 

Enforcement....................................................................3 

B. Policies Limiting Local and State Involvement in Federal 

Immigration Enforcement Seek to Maintain and Build Trust 

Between the Community and the Police and Preserve Local 

Resources........................................................................8 

II. The Executive Order Seeks to Force Local Law Enforcement 

Agencies to Engage in Conduct that Violates the Constitution and 

Subjects Local Law Enforcement Officers and Agencies to 

Potential Liability.................................................................10 

CONCLUSION.....................................................................................12

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INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE

Amici are individual police chiefs and sheriffs from cities and counties in eleven states. 

Amici have extensive expertise in local law enforcement and in cooperative federal-state law 

enforcement activities. They are intimately familiar with the challenges of performing critical law 

enforcement functions in communities where immigrants fear the police and are vulnerable to 

exploitation and crime. Amici represent some of the more than 400 jurisdictions that have policies 

limiting local involvement in federal immigration operations. 

Amici’s experience in keeping their communities safe has taught the critical importance of 

bringing immigrants and their families out of the shadows. Community trust and cooperation are 

essential to public safety, and sound police work is undermined by undocumented immigrants’ 

fears of interacting with law enforcement. This dynamic, moreover, leaves undocumented 

immigrants more vulnerable to crime and exploitation, leading to more violence in the 

communities amici are charged with protecting. 

Amici have concluded that Executive Order 13768 (the “Executive Order”) is an attempt 

to compel jurisdictions such as the City and County of San Francisco to take part in federal 

immigration enforcement, including honoring civil detainers—requests from Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) to hold an individual in local governmental custody to allow ICE 

to take the individual into federal custody—or risk losing vital federal funding. Greater local 

involvement in immigration enforcement would cause community members to mistrust the police 

and result in a decrease in cooperation, hindering the ability of local law enforcement agencies to 

keep their communities safe. It would also drain scarce resources that would otherwise be used to 

enhance public safety. Further, detention of individuals under ICE detainers who would otherwise 

be released from custody has been found by federal courts across the country to violate the Fourth 

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Amendment of the United States Constitution. Thus, amici have concluded that a preliminary 

injunction is necessary to halt this attempt to coerce local law enforcement officers and agencies 

into a practice that would likely result in widespread constitutional violations and substantial civil 

liability. A full list of amici is attached as Exhibit A. 

INTRODUCTION 

The lessons amici have learned in protecting their communities shed important light on the 

issues raised in these cases. When community residents live in constant fear that interactions with 

local police could result in deportation, there is a fundamental breakdown in trust that impedes the 

police from doing their jobs and threatens public safety. Extensive evidence shows that 

undocumented immigrants—and their lawfully present family and neighbors—fear that turning to 

the police will bring adverse immigration consequences. As a result, immigrant communities are 

less willing to report crime or cooperate with police investigations. This fundamental breakdown 

in trust poses a major challenge both to investigation of individual crimes and to proper allocation 

of public safety resources. 

Current policies limiting local and state involvement in federal immigration enforcement 

address this issue of trust. Though they take several different forms, these policies generally aim 

to preserve local and state resources and improve public safety by promoting cooperation between 

law enforcement and the communities they serve.1

 Many jurisdictions include a policy or law 

                                                            

1 See Oversight of the Administration’s Misdirected Immigration Enforcement Policies: 

Examining the Impact of Public Safety and Honoring the Victims: Hearing Before the S. Comm. 

on the Judiciary, 2 (July 21, 2015) (statement of Tom Manger, Chief, Montgomery Cty., Md., 

Police Dep’t & President, Major Cities Chiefs Ass’n), available at

http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-21-15%20Manger%20Testimony.pdf. 

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limiting continued detention pursuant to an ICE detainer.2 The Executive Order upends these 

policies, to the detriment of community safety. 

Further, the Executive Order threatens to withdraw federal funds from “sanctuary 

jurisdictions,” which it equates with jurisdictions that refuse to comply with ICE detainer requests, 

among other factors.3

 Detentions pursuant to ICE detainers have been held by numerous courts to 

violate the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Thus, the Executive Order seeks 

to compel local jurisdictions to take part in conduct that could result in unconstitutional detentions 

and civil liability, or face the loss of federal funds. The federal government cannot force local 

communities into such a Hobson’s choice. 

ARGUMENT 

I. The Executive Order Impedes Effective Law Enforcement. 

A. Trust and Respect Between Communities and Police Is Essential to 

Effective Law Enforcement, and is Thwarted When Local Officers are 

Forced to Partake in Federal Immigration Enforcement. 

The experience of policing cities across the country has taught law enforcement officers 

that “[t]o do our job, we must have the trust and respect of the communities we serve.”4

 In order 

to stop crime, police officers “need the full cooperation of victims and witnesses.”5

                                                            

2

 8 C.F.R. § 287.7; see also Jasmine C. Lee, Rudy Omri, and Julia Preston, What Are Sanctuary 

Cities?, N.Y. TIMES Feb. 6, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/02/us/sanctuarycities.html;Detainer Polices, IMMIGRANT LEGAL RESOURCE CENTER (Mar. 21, 2017), available at

https://www.ilrc.org/detainer-policies [hereinafter ILRC Detainer Policies] 

3

 Exec. Order No. 13768, 82 Fed. Reg. 8799, 8801 at § 9(a) (Jan. 30, 2017) [hereinafter “Executive 

Order”]. 

4 Oversight of the Administration’s Misdirected Immigration Enforcement Policies: Examining 

the Impact of Public Safety and Honoring the Victims: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on the 

Judiciary, 2 (July 21, 2015) (statement of Tom Manger, Chief, Montgomery Cty., Md., Police 

Dep’t & President, Major Cities Chiefs Ass’n), available at http://www.judiciary.senate. 

gov/imo/media/doc/07-21-15%20Manger%20Testimony.pdf. 

5 Id.

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This common-sense philosophy is sometimes called “community policing.” Community 

policing is an approach to policing where police officers engage communities in a working 

partnership to reduce crime and promote public safety.6 It thus requires police to interact with 

neighborhood residents in a manner that will build trust and improve the level of cooperation with 

the police department.7 When that relationship of trust is missing–as it is when people believe that 

contacting police could lead to deportation for themselves or others–community policing breaks 

down and the entire community is harmed. 

According to a Pew survey, 57% percent of Latinos in the United States indicate that they 

worry about deportation–of themselves, family members, or close friends–and 40% worry about 

it “a lot.”8 This fear necessarily affects cooperation and communication with the police. 

Immigrants–and their family members and neighbors who may be U.S. citizens or lawfully 

present–often assume that interaction with police could have adverse consequences for themselves 

or a loved one. 

As a result, immigrant communities in general, and undocumented immigrants in 

particular, are less likely to trust and cooperate with local police. One study of Latinos in four 

major cities found that 70% of undocumented immigrants and 44% of all Latinos are less likely to 

contact law enforcement authorities if they were victims of a crime for fear that the police will ask 

                                                            

6 See Anita Khashu, The Role Of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration 

Enforcement and Civil Liberties, POLICE FOUND., (Apr. 2009) (citing Mark H. Moore, “ProblemSolving and Community Policing,” MODERN POLICING (Michael Tonry & Norval Morris eds., 

1992)), available at https://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Role-ofLocal-Police-Narrative.pdf. 

7 Id. 8

 Mark Hugo Lopez & Susan Minushkin, 2008 National Survey of Latinos: Hispanics See Their 

Situation in U.S. Deteriorating; Oppose Key Immigration Enforcement Measures, PEW HISPANIC 

CENTER, (Sept. 18, 2008), at ii, available at http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php 

?ReportID=93. 

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them or people they know about their immigration status; and 67% of undocumented immigrants 

and 45% of all Latinos are less likely to voluntarily offer information about, or report, crimes 

because of the same fear.9

This study (among others) highlights that fears of immigration enforcement and the 

resulting damage to law enforcement cooperation affects not just the undocumented community 

but also individuals with citizenship or lawful status, in particular in “mixed-status” households.10 

This problematic atmosphere of mistrust is felt by police as well. In one study, two-thirds 

of the law enforcement officers polled held the view that recent immigrants reported crimes less 

frequently than others.11 Those surveyed also indicated that the crimes that are underreported by 

immigrants most often are serious ones, with domestic violence and gang violence at the top.12

The widely-recognized fear among immigrants of interacting with law enforcement poses 

a fundamental challenge for community policing. Police cannot prevent or solve crimes if victims 

or witnesses are unwilling to talk to them because of concerns that they or their loved ones or 

neighbors will face adverse immigration consequences. As the president of the Major Cities Chiefs 

                                                            

9

 Nik Theodore, Insecure Communities: Latino Perceptions of Police Involvement in Immigration 

Enforcement 5-6 (May 2013), available at www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/INSECURE 

_COMMUNITIES_REPORT_FINAL.PDF; see also id. at 1 (“Survey results indicate that the 

greater involvement of police in immigration enforcement has significantly heightened the fears 

many Latinos have of the police, . . . exacerbating their mistrust of law enforcement authorities.”). 

10 An estimated 85% of immigrants live in mixed-status families. See Anita Khashu, The Role Of 

Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties, POLICE 

FOUND., (Apr. 2009), at 24, available at http://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/ 

uploads/2015/06/The-Role-of-Local-Police-Narrative.pdf. See also Jill Theresa Messing, et al., 

Latinas’ Perceptions of Law Enforcement: Fear of Deportation, Crime Reporting, and Trust in 

the System, 30 J. Women & Soc. Work 328, 334 (2015) (“The results indicate that for each 1-point 

increase in fear of deportation [e.g., from ‘not much’ to ‘some’ worry, or from ‘some’ to ‘a lot’], 

Latina participants were 15% less willing to report being victim of a violent crime to police.”). 

11 Robert C. Davis, Edna Erez & Nancy Avitabile, Access to Justice for Immigrants Who Are 

Victimized: The Perspectives of Police and Prosecutors, 12 Crim. Just. Pol’y Rev. 183, 187 (Sept. 

2001). 

12 Id. at 188-9. 

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Association has explained to Congress, “[c]ooperation is not forthcoming from persons who see 

their police as immigration agents.”13 

Recent incidents in jurisdictions with policies targeted by the Executive Order demonstrate 

the public safety benefits of these policies. For example, last year Los Angeles Police Department 

officers had an encounter with a suspected gang member that resulted in a vehicle chase, a foot 

pursuit, and shots fired. An undocumented immigrant helped police locate the suspect by providing 

a description and vehicle information.14 In Tucson, Arizona, an undocumented man confronted 

and struggled with a man who tried to steal a car with children inside. The immigrant held the 

individual until police arrived, then cooperated with detectives in the follow-up investigation, 

resulting in charges of kidnapping, auto theft, and burglary.15 These examples show why crime is 

statistically significantly lower in counties that do not hold people in custody beyond their release 

date pursuant to an ICE detainer compared to those that do.16 The Executive Order threatens to 

penalize local agencies for developing these common sense policing policies. But as cautioned by 

one official, “immigrants will never help their local police to fight crime once they fear we have 

become immigration officers.”17

                                                            

13 Statement of Tom Manger, supra note 1, at 2. 

14 Chuck Wexler, Commentary: Why police support sanctuaries, PHILA. INQUIRER, March 10, 

2017, available at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20170310_Commentary__Why_police_ 

support_sanctuaries.html. 

15 Id. 

16 Tom K. Wong, “The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy,” CENTER FOR 

AMERICAN PROGRESS, (Jan. 26, 2017), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/ 

issues/immigration/reports/2017/01/26/297366/the-effects-of-sanctuary-policies-on-crime-andthe-economy/ (“The results of the CEM analysis show that there are, on average, 35.5 fewer crimes 

per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties—a result that is highly statistically significant.”). 

17 Local Law Enforcement Leaders Oppose Mandates to Engage in Immigration Enforcement, 

NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER, (Aug. 2013), at 2 (statement of Chief Acevedo), available 

at https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Law-Enforcement-Opposition-to-Mandates2013-08-30.pdf. 

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The underreporting of crimes by recent immigrants is a problem for the criminal justice 

system.18 The most immediate consequence, of course, is that serious crimes go unreported and 

unpunished. At a broader level, undercounting the incidence of crime in areas where immigrant 

communities live leads to the under-allocation of law enforcement resources to those 

communities.19 As one official explained, when criminal behavior goes unreported “[c]rime 

multiplies” and “[u]nresolved resentments grow in the community.”20 Another added that the 

under-reporting of crime “keeps fear at very high levels and diminishes quality of life.”21

Distrust between immigrants and the police also results in greater victimization of 

immigrants. “When immigrants come to view their local police and sheriffs with distrust because 

they fear deportation, it creates conditions that encourage criminals to prey upon victims and 

witnesses alike.”22 This phenomenon has been termed the “deportation threat dynamic,” where an 

individual does not report a crime of which they are the victim, fearing immigration 

consequences.23 Nearly two-thirds of undocumented migrant workers participating in a study in 

Memphis, Tennessee reported being the victim of at least one crime, with the most common being 

theft and robbery.24 Respondents indicated that fewer than a quarter of these crimes were reported 

to the police, and only one was reported by the victim himself.25

                                                            

18 Davis et al., supra note 11, at 188. 

19 Id.

20 Id.

21 Id.

22 Statement of Tom Manger, supra note 1, at 2. 

23 Elizabeth Fussell, The Deportation Threat Dynamic & Victimization of Latino Migrants: Wage 

Theft & Robbery, 52 Soc. Q. 593, 610 (2011). 

24 Jacob Bucher, Michelle Manasse & Beth Tarasawa, Undocumented Victims: An Examination of 

Crimes Against Undocumented Male Migrant Workers, 7 Sw. J. Crim. Just. 159, 164, 166 (2010). 

25 Id. at 165. 

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Undocumented immigrants are especially vulnerable to domestic violence. A number of 

studies have shown that abusive partners may utilize the threat of deportation in order to maintain 

power and control.26 When the abusing partner has lawful status, financial dependence on a partner 

with stable immigration status may similarly facilitate violence.27 Seventy percent of participants 

in one study of domestic abuse victims said that immigration status was a major reason keeping 

them from seeking help or reporting their abuse to the authorities—and thereby permitting the 

violence to continue.28 In another study, the single largest factor independently affecting the rate 

at which battered immigrant Latina women called the police was identified as immigration status.29 

B. Policies Limiting Local and State Involvement in Federal Immigration 

Enforcement Seek to Maintain and Build Trust Between the Community 

and the Police and Preserve Local Resources. 

Current policies limiting local and state involvement in federal immigration enforcement, 

while varying by jurisdiction, universally aim to enhance community trust and preserve local 

resources. These policies seek to improve public safety by promoting cooperation between law 

enforcement and the communities they serve. 

Some administrative policies or laws include formal restrictions on local law enforcement’s 

ability to apprehend or arrest an individual for federal immigration violations, including 

                                                            

26 See, e.g., Messing, supra note 10, at 330 (citing several studies); Angelica S. Reina, Brenda J. 

Lohman & Marta María Maldonado, “He Said They’d Deport Me”: Factors Influencing Domestic 

Violence Help-Seeking Practices Among Latina Immigrants, 29 J. Interpersonal Violence 593, 601 

(2013). The latter study cited a participant who explained that a partner “beat me up and I could 

have called the police because that was what I thought to do... but he threatened me...he told me 

that if I called the police I was going to lose out...because they [police officers] ...would ... take 

me, because I didn’t have legal documents.” Reina, Lohman & Maldonado at 601. 

27 See, e.g., Messing, supra note 10, at 330. 

28 Reina, Lohman & Maldonado, supra note 26, at 600. 

29 Nawal H. Ammar et al., Calls to Police and Police Response: A Case Study of Latina Immigrant 

Women in the USA, 7 Int’l J. Police Sci. & Mgmt. 230, 237 (2005). 

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restrictions on arrests for civil violations of federal immigration law.30 Other policies include 

restrictions on local law enforcement inquiries or investigations into a person’s immigration status 

or the gathering of such information on a local level.31 Additionally, many jurisdictions have 

adopted policies against continued detention of an individual based on immigration detainer 

requests for at least some categories of noncitizens.32 Several states, including California, limit the 

extent to which local police can cooperate with detainer requests, and more than 400 counties have 

policies limiting cooperation with detainers.33 

These policies also play an important role in preserving local law enforcement resources. 

Complying with ICE detainer requests alone can add staggering costs—in some cases, tens of 

                                                            

30 See MICHAEL JOHN GARCIA AND KATE M. MANUEL, CONG. RESEARCH SERV., R43457, STATE 

AND LOCAL “SANCTUARY” POLICIES LIMITING PARTICIPATION IN IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT, 9 

(July 10, 2015), available at https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R43457.pdf; see also OR. REV.

STAT. ANN. § 181A.820 (“No law enforcement agency of the State of Oregon or of any political 

subdivision of the state shall use agency moneys, equipment or personnel for the purpose of 

detecting or apprehending persons whose only violation of law is that they are persons of foreign 

citizenship present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.”); Washington, 

DC, Mayor’s Order 2011-174: Disclosure of Status of Individuals: Policies and Procedures of 

District of Columbia Agencies (Oct. 19, 2011), at 2 (“No person shall be detained solely on the 

belief that he or she is not present legally in the United States or that he or she has committed a 

civil immigration violation.”), available at http://dcregs.dc.gov/Gateway/NoticeHome.aspx? 

NoticeID=1784041 [hereinafter DC Order]; Phoenix, AZ, Police Dep’t Operations Order Manual, 

(Jan. 2011) at 1.4, (“The investigation and enforcement of federal laws relating to illegal entry and 

residence in the United States is specifically assigned to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

within DHS].”), available at https://www.phoenix.gov/policesite/Documents/089035.pdf; see also

Melendres v. Arpaio, 695 F.3d 990, 1001 (9th Cir. 2012) (“[the sheriff] may not detain individuals 

solely because of unlawful presence.”). 

31 See, e.g., DC Order, supra note 30 (public safety employees “shall not inquire about a person’s 

immigration status. . . for the purpose of initiating civil enforcement of immigration proceedings 

that have no nexus to a criminal investigation”). 

32 GARCIA AND MANUEL, supra note 30 at 14. 

33 See California Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools (TRUST) Act, Cal. Gov’t 

Code § 7282.5 (West 2014) (prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from honoring ICE 

detainer requests for individuals without specific prior criminal convictions or charges as to which 

a judge has made a finding of probable cause); see also Omri and Preston, supra note 2; see also

ILCR Detainer Policies, supra note 2. 

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millions of dollars annually.34 Communities carefully allocate resources such as funds, training, 

and officer duties to best serve local law enforcement needs; forced redistribution to immigration 

enforcement would siphon limited resources away from where they are most needed while 

simultaneously damaging community engagement and protection.35 

The Executive Order seeks to wholly disrupt the policies that many communities, including 

the City and County of San Francisco, have put in place to specifically ensure that immigrants do 

not fear interactions with local law enforcement and prevent diversion of resources from effective 

public safety efforts. Further, the Executive Order has the effect of preventing those communities 

that want to adopt such policies from moving forward. By forcing jurisdictions to honor detainer 

requests and further entangle themselves with federal immigration enforcement, the Executive 

Order reduces the ability of local law enforcement agencies to build trust with immigrant 

communities, leading the underreporting of crime and greater victimization described above. 

II. The Executive Order Seeks to Force Local Law Enforcement Agencies to 

Engage in Conduct that Violates the Constitution and Subjects Local Law 

Enforcement Officers and Agencies to Potential Liability. 

The Executive Order seeks to require jurisdictions to honor ICE detainers or risk losing 

federal funding. However, numerous courts have found that continuing to detain an individual 

under an ICE detainer for longer than they otherwise would be held violates the Fourth 

Amendment. Cities and counties should not be faced with the stark choice of losing federal funds 

or committing constitutional violations for which they will be subject to civil liability. 

                                                            

34 See Legislative Threats to Undermine Community Safety Policies: The Costs of Entangling 

Local Policing and Immigration Law, NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER AND NATIONAL 

IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER, (Aug. 2015), available at http://immigrantjustice.org/sites/ 

immigrantjustice.org/files/201508_05_NIJC_NILC_EnforcementCosts.pdf. 

35 See Letter from Law Enforcement Task Force to Hon. Trey Gowdy and Hon. Zoe Lofgren (July 

20, 2015) available at https://immigrationforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/072015-LEITFLetter-House.pdf. 

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The Fourth Amendment’s most basic requirement is that all arrests must be supported by 

probable cause.36 Probable cause requires that “the facts and circumstances within . . . the officers’ 

knowledge and of which they ha[ve] reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in 

themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being 

committed.”37 Under long-standing Fourth Amendment precedent, numerous federal courts have 

found that continued detention under an ICE detainer, absent probable cause, gives rise to a claim 

for a violation of the Fourth Amendment and subjects the detaining officer or jurisdiction to civil 

liability. 38 These courts have found that local jails must have a warrant or probable cause of a new 

offense to detain a person after they would otherwise be released from custody.39 

                                                            

36 See Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 213 (1979). 

37 Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175-76 (1949) (internal quotation marks, brackets, and 

citation omitted). 

38 See Morales v. Chadbourne, 996 F. Supp. 2d 19 (D. R.I. 2014), aff’d on appeal, 793 F.3d 208 

(1st Cir. 2015) (plaintiff stated Fourth Amendment claim where she was held for 24 hours on ICE 

detainer issued without probable cause); Galarza v. Szalczyk, No. 10-cv-06815, 2012 WL 

1080020, at *10, *13 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 30, 2012) (where plaintiff was held for 3 days after posting 

bail based on an ICE detainer, he stated a Fourth Amendment claim against both federal and local 

defendants), rev’d on other grounds, 745 F.3d 634 (3d Cir. 2014); Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas 

Cnty., No. 12-cv-02317-ST, 2014 WL 1414305, at *10 (D. Or. Apr. 11, 2014) (plaintiff’s detention 

on an ICE detainer after she would otherwise have been released “constituted a new arrest, and 

must be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment”); Mendoza v. Osterberg, No. 13CV65, 2014 WL 

3784141, at *6 (D. Neb. July 31, 2014) (recognizing that “[t]he Fourth Amendment applies to all 

seizures of the person,” and thus, “[i]n order to issue a detainer[,] there must be probable cause”) 

(internal quotation marks, ellipses, and citations omitted); Villars v. Kubiatowski, 45 F.Supp.3d 

791 (N.D. Ill. 2014) (holding that plaintiff stated a Fourth Amendment claim where he was held 

on an ICE detainer that “lacked probable cause); Uroza v. Salt Lake Cnty., No. 11CV713DAK, 

2013 WL 653968, at *5-6 (D. Ut. Feb. 21, 2013) (holding that plaintiff stated a Fourth Amendment 

claim where ICE issued his detainer without probable cause); Vohra v. United States, No. 04-cv00972-DSF-RZ, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34363, *25 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 4, 2010) (magistrate’s report 

and recommendation) (“Plaintiff was kept in formal detention for at least several hours longer due 

to the ICE detainer. In plain terms, he was subjected to the functional equivalent of a warrantless 

arrest” to which the “‘probable cause’ standard . . . applies”), adopted, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 

34088 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 29, 2010). 

39 See, e.g., Morales, 793 F.3d at 217 (1st Cir. 2015) (“Because Morales was kept in custody for a 

new purpose after she was entitled to release, she was subjected to a new seizure for Fourth 

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BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF INDIVIDUAL SHERIFFS AND POLICE CHIEFS 

Case No. 3:17-cv-00484-WHO 

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The Executive Order contains no guidance or directive that detainers will issue only with 

a showing of probable cause or a judicial warrant. There is thus no lawful way for local 

jurisdictions to comply with the Executive Order’s requirement to honor ICE detainers. Further, 

the Supreme Court has held that the federal government’s spending power “may not be used to 

induce the States to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional.”40 The 

Executive Order’s attempt to strip jurisdictions of funding if they do not honor ICE detainers is 

unlawful, and forces localities to choose between funding and committing and subjecting 

themselves to liability for constitutional violations. As such, the Executive Order should be 

preliminarily enjoined. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, as well as the reasons set forth in Plaintiff’s Motion, this Court 

should grant the nationwide preliminary injunction against the Executive Order. 

March 29, 2017 Respectfully Submitted, 

/s/ Matthew J. Piers 

Matthew J. Piers 

Chirag G. Badlani 

Caryn C. Lederer 

HUGHES SOCOL PIERS RESNICK & DYM, LTD. 

70 West Madison St., Suite 4000 

Chicago, IL 60602 

Phone: (312) 580-0100 

Counsel for Amici Curiae

                                                            

Amendment purposes— one that must be supported by a new probable cause justification.”); 

Vohra, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34363 (C.D. Cal. 2010). 

40 South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 210–11 (1987). 

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EXHIBIT A 

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EXHIBIT A 

BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF INDIVIDUAL SHERIFFS AND POLICE CHIEFS 

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EXHIBIT A 

Amici Individual Sheriffs and Police Chiefs are: 

 Chief Art Acevedo, Houston, Texas, Police Department; 

 Chief Charles Beck, Los Angeles, California, Police Department;

 Chief Chris Burbank (retired), Salt Lake City, Utah, Police Department; 

 Sheriff Jerry Clayton, Washtenaw County, Michigan, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Sheriff Mark Curran, Lake County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Sheriff Tony Estrada, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Sheriff Michael Haley (retired), Washoe County, Nevada, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Sheriff Bill McCarthy, Polk County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Sheriff Joe Pelle, Boulder County, Colorado, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Chief Celestino Rivera, Lorain, Ohio, Police Department; 

 Sheriff John Urquhart, King County, Washington, Sheriff’s Office; 

 Sheriff Lupe Valdez, Dallas County, Texas, Sheriff’s Department; and 

 Sheriff Richard Wiles, El Paso County, Texas, Sheriff’s Office.

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