Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey said Friday he does not foresee any major changes to his department's immigration enforcement policy.
Carey discussed the county's strategy with the Columbia Pachyderms, one of the community's Republican grassroots organizations.
"We are not out just looking for those that are undocumented. We have enough crime to keep us busy with what we are doing," Carey said.
In 2024, 11 people were detained at the Boone County Jail on federal immigration charges. These individuals are classified as "federal detainers," which means they are held by local law enforcement agencies until they are transferred into federal custody. From there, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversees their potential deportation.
“We just don't have the numbers that some people think that we have. I mean 11 for all of 2024, that is less than one a month,” Carey said.
There are currently nine federal detainers in Boone County Jail, according to Carey. He did not mention how long the individuals had been in custody.
Gov. Mike Kehoe signed two executive orders related to immigration on his first day in office in January. The orders mandate Missouri Highway Patrol troopers to attend federal immigration enforcement training and require officers to include individual's immigration status in arrest reports to be tracked at the state-level.
Carey said he had not been contacted directly about immigration protocol.
He explained that law enforcement agencies will continue to make arrests related to criminal violations. If the arrested individual is unauthorized to be in the country, it is then up to the state prosecutor to determine if the individual will be charged at the state level or if federal agencies will be involved.
"We will enforce state law, and we will enforce criminal federal law if someone is violating the law," Carey said. "We’re not changing anything we are doing because we've been doing it all along."
Carey said the state "didn't have the number" of people detained on immigration charges that some might assume.
Missouri Attorney General Bailey estimated there are between 77,000 and 104,000 undocumented immigrants in the state in a press release last year. The actual number may be closer to 50,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Using Bailey highest estimate, the undocumented population would account for just over 1% of the state's population.
