Overview
- Federal agents hand‑delivered letters and subpoenas in early July that warned Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart they could face felony witness‑tampering charges if jails did not give ICE broad access to inmates.
- Both sheriffs publicly rejected the demands and said they will keep following office policies that require a judicial warrant before honoring ICE custody requests.
- Some subpoenas sought jail staff to make detainees available for ICE interviews or to notify ICE on release and in at least a few cases were served after the cited people had already been freed.
- The Department of Homeland Security defended the tactic as a way to secure dangerous suspects for deportation while legal experts and former prosecutors say using the federal witness‑tampering statute against sheriffs appears unlikely to hold up in court.
- The episode follows earlier court rulings that protected local limits on immigration cooperation and highlights a shift by DHS toward quieter enforcement methods that could further strain trust between immigrant communities and local police.