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Residents urge transparency over sheriff’s handling of immigrant arrests
Summary
Public commenters at the June 1 joint Jackson-Teton budget meeting alleged the sheriff’s office disproportionately arrests immigrants and called on elected leaders to demand records and analysis; a commissioner pledged to follow up with the sheriff.
At a June 1 joint meeting of the Jackson town council and Teton County commission, public commenters urged the boards to demand transparency from the sheriff’s office over transfers and arrest patterns involving immigrant residents.
Craig Logan told the boards that a recent Cahill article “largely confirmed” the Teton County Sheriff’s Office had engaged in profiling. He said the article found arrests of immigrant residents occurred “at a proportion greater than twice their actual representation in our population,” accused the sheriff’s office of withholding ethnicity and nationality records in response to public-records requests, and asked the boards that “hold the purse strings” to demand accountability. “All it takes is them for the arrest the wrong person wants … and it’s a multimillion dollar lawsuit that the taxpayers are gonna pick up the bill for,” Logan said.
Jen Hainem, another public commenter, cited CAHO reporting that 153 people were transferred from the Teton County Detention Center to ICE over a 13-month period and asked whether anyone — including the sheriff’s office — has evaluated the policy’s workforce, family, business and public-safety impacts. “If a policy affects workers, employers, families, public safety and trust in government, it deserves analysis,” she said, asking the boards to request such an analysis if it does not already exist.
Commissioner Gardner responded during “matters from commission,” saying he had spent time with the sheriff to understand the department’s policies and that the issue has “more nuance” than initial reports suggested. Still, he said he was “deeply troubled” by the trauma described by commenters and committed to follow up with the sheriff specifically about policies around traffic-related stops and transfers to ICE.
The boards did not take immediate action during the meeting to require a formal audit or policy change; both council and commission members said they would refer the topic to staff and to elected officials for follow-up. The meeting record shows no direct response from the sheriff’s office during the public-comment period.
Next steps: Commissioner Gardner said he will follow up with the sheriff to seek clarifications on the department’s policies and any available analysis, and the public was directed to staff for possible follow-up reporting or requests for records.
