'What is the American dream?': Kootenai County Jail's border holds jump 450% after Trump inauguration
Feb. 10—Border detainments in Kootenai County's jail have skyrocketed in less than a month following the second inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Trump promised a massive immigration overhaul during his campaign to deport "criminals" in the country without authorization. But as his presidency took shape over the last few weeks, "anyone that doesn't have status is deportable," said Vanessa Gutierrez, the co-deputy director of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project . Gutierrez's organization runs an immigrant education and orientation program at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma for those who are being held and are looking for guidance.
Those detained in or around Spokane are sent to Kootenai County Jail first, which allows ICE and Border Patrol to hold detainees there. Each federal hold in the North Idaho jail is reimbursed at a rate of $112 per day per person, according to reporting by the Coeur D'Alene Press.
In the first 29 days of January, the jail saw 22 holds, with five in one day . The numbers jumped 450% from December, when the jail recorded just four holds. The number was slightly higher in November, with 10 recorded Border Patrol and ICE holds.
The sharp rise in holds in Kootenai County mirrors those seen elsewhere in the Northwest since Trump's second term began.
Gutierrez's organization gets the rosters of everyone held at the detainment center — and Gutierrez is seeing 800 to 1,000 people detained at any given time, she said, which increased after Trump's inauguration.
If Tacoma's detainment center isn't already at capacity, it soon will be, Gutierrez said.
While a majority of Border Patrol's contact in Idaho were with unauthorized immigrants from Canada, Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris told The Spokesman-Review in an interview last year that more contact with Spanish-speakers is an indicator that a rise in criminal cases is "going to come." This week, he pledged in a statement that all of the county's resources will be used to "assist in the deportation" of noncitizens who commit crimes, noncitizens who are here "legally" and commit crimes, and any unauthorized person in general.
"As part of our policing practice, if we come in contact with anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, we notify Border Patrol," said sheriff's office spokesperson Lt. Jeff Howard.
Nothing has changed as part of their enforcement efforts, he said.
"We have had an increase of inmates brought in on detainers under our contact with the U.S. Marshal's Office," Howard wrote in an email last week. "Several of those that have been brought in are foreign nationals."
All are typically held for less than 48 hours unless a court order prompts otherwise.
Howard said the jail ends up taking "several detainees" from around the area, which includes Washington, Montana and Idaho. But it's unclear how many people held in Kootenai County's jail are coming from Washington.
While the Spokane County Jail has a contract with the U.S. Marshals to hold people facing federal criminal charges, the jail does not have a contract with Border Patrol or ICE in compliance with the Keep Washington Working Act. The act was passed in 2019 and prevents local law enforcement from giving federal authorities information about a civil immigration matter. This means anyone arrested by ICE or Border Patrol in Spokane will be transferred to the Kootenai County Jail and then back across the Washington border to Tacoma.
While there are criminal acts related to immigration, being an unauthorized immigrant in the U.S is not a crime, it's a civil offense. It's why Gutierrez calls the word "illegal" her pet peeve.
"Most immigration cases brought before courts are civil, not criminal. There are immigration related criminal charges, like a re-entry ... There are lots of people here, undocumented, without crossing the border because they legally entered in a port of entry," she said.
As soon as Trump entered office, he issued a sweeping executive order that suspended migrants from seeking asylum at the southern border. His administration also shut down the CBP One app, which allowed migrants to apply to enter the U.S legally as they sought asylum from war-torn or violent countries. Pending appointments were also canceled.
"We see asylum seekers now expressing fear. Before Trump, they were given permission to come in, apply for asylum and appear in court," Gutierrez said. "That's legal ... Now they can't seek asylum, even though they are permitted to ... People still have rights, regardless of their immigration status."
On Monday, at least 200 flooded Spokane City Hall in a pro-immigration rally. Among the attendees was 17-year-old Mia Pelayo.
She peered above the Chase Gallery, draping a Mexican flag over the barrier, as she watched the crowd below her.
"I'm here for my parents," she said. "My mom is an immigrant."
Pelayo's parents came to the U.S. "without anything," she said, and worked hard to give her a better life. This weekend, her mother came into her room and was talking about making copies of Pelayo's passport and other legal documents to put in her school backpack.
"It made me bawl, because I was thinking about how I have to worry about carrying my papers around. Now, that is relevant to who I am as a person," Pelayo said. "This is supposed to be the American dream. But ... what is the American dream?"
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
26 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Yemen's al-Qaida branch leader threatens Trump, Musk and others
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The leader of al-Qaida's Yemen branch has threatened both U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip in his first video message since taking over the group last year. The half-hour video message by Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki, which spread online early Saturday via supporters of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also included calls for lone-wolf militants to assassinate leaders in Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Arab states over the war, which has decimated Gaza. The video of al-Awlaki's speech showed images of Trump and Musk, as well as U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth. It also included images of logos of Musk's businesses, including the electric carmaker Tesla. 'There are no red lines after what happened and is happening to our people in Gaza," al-Awlaki said. "Reciprocity is legitimate.' Yemen's al-Qaida branch long thought to be most dangerous Though believed to be weakened in recent years due to infighting and suspected U.S. drone strikes killing its leaders, the group known by the acronym AQAP had been considered the most dangerous branch of al-Qaida still operating after the 2011 killing by U.S. Navy SEALs of founder Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2022, a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan killed bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, who also helped plot 9/11. The Sept. 11 attacks then began decades of war by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, and fomented the rise of the Islamic State group. Al-Awlaki already has a $6 million U.S. bounty on his head, as Washington says al-Awlaki 'has publicly called for attacks against the United States and its allies.' He replaced AQAP leader Khalid al-Batarfi, whose death was announced by the group in 2024. Israel-Hamas war a focus of the Houthis as well AQAP seizing onto the Israel-Hamas war follows the efforts of Yemen's Houthi rebels to do the same. The Iranian-backed group has launched missile attacks on Israel and targeted commercial vessels moving through the Red Sea corridor, as well as American warships. The U.S. Navy has described their campaign against the Houthis as the most intense combat it has faced since World War II. The Trump administration also launched its own intense campaign of strikes on the Houthis, which only ended before the president's recent trip to the Middle East. The Houthis' international profile rose as the group remains mired in Yemen's long-stalemated war. Al-Awlaki may be betting on the same for his group, which U.N. experts have estimated has between 3,000 and 4,000 active fighters and passive members. The group raises money by robbing banks and money exchange shops, as well as smuggling weapons, counterfeiting currencies and ransom operations, according to the U.N. The Shiite Zaydi Houthis have previously denied working with AQAP, a Sunni extremist group. However, AQAP targeting of the Houthis has dropped in recent years, while the militants keep attacking Saudi-led coalition forces who have battled the Houthis. 'As the Houthis gain popularity as leaders of the 'Arab and Muslim world's resistance' against Israel, al-Awlaki seeks to challenge their dominance by presenting himself as equally concerned about the situation in Gaza,' said Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert of the Basha Report risk advisory firm. 'For a national security and foreign policy community increasingly disengaged from Yemen, this video is a clear reminder: Yemen still matters.'
26 minutes ago
Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts -- but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — The tax cuts in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act would likely gouge a hole in the federal budget. The president has a patch handy, though: his sweeping import taxes — tariffs. The Congressional Budget Office, the government's nonpartisan arbiter of tax and spending matters, says the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by the House last month and now under consideration in the Senate, would increase federal budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That is because its tax cuts would drain the government's coffers faster than its spending cuts would save money. By bringing in revenue for the Treasury, on the other hand, the tariffs that Trump announced through May 13 — including his so-called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries with which the United States has a trade deficit — would offset the budget impact of the tax-cut bill and reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.5 trillion. So it's basically a wash. That's the budget math anyway. The real answer is more complicated. Actually using tariffs to finance a big chunk of the federal government would be a painful and perilous undertaking, budget wonks say. 'It's a very dangerous way to try to raise revenue,' said Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department. Trump has long advocated tariffs as an economic elixir. He says they can protect American industries, bring factories back to the United States, give him leverage to win concessions over foreign governments — and raise a lot of money. He's even suggested that they could replace the federal income tax, which now brings in about half of federal revenue. 'It's possible we'll do a complete tax cut,'' he told reporters in April. 'I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.'' Economists and budget analysts do not share the president's enthusiasm for using tariffs to finance the government or to replace other taxes. 'It's a really bad trade,'' said Erica York, the Tax Foundation's vice president of federal tax policy. 'It's perhaps the dumbest tax reform you could design.'' For one thing, Trump's tariffs are an unstable source of revenue. He bypassed Congress and imposed his biggest import tax hikes through executive orders. That means a future president could simply reverse them. 'Or political whims in Congress could change, and they could decide, 'Hey, we're going revoke this authority because we don't think it's a good thing that the president can just unilaterally impose a $2 trillion tax hike,' '' York said. Or the courts could kill his tariffs before Congress or future presidents do. A federal court in New York has already struck down the centerpiece of his tariff program — the reciprocal and other levies he announced on what he called 'Liberation Day'' April 2 — saying he'd overstepped his authority. An appeals court has allowed the government to keep collecting the levies while the legal challenge winds its way through the court system. Economists also say that tariffs damage the economy. They are a tax on foreign products, paid by importers in the United States and usually passed along to their customers via higher prices. They raise costs for U.S. manufacturers that rely on imported raw materials, components and equipment, making them less competitive than foreign rivals that don't have to pay Trump's tariffs. Tariffs also invite retaliatory taxes on U.S. exports by foreign countries. Indeed, the European Union this week threatened 'countermeasures'' against Trump's unexpected move to raise his tariff on foreign steel and aluminum to 50%. 'You're not just getting the effect of a tax on the U.S. economy,' York said. 'You're also getting the effect of foreign taxes on U.S. exports.'' She said the tariffs will basically wipe out all economic benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts. Smetters at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said that tariffs also isolate the United States and discourage foreigners from investing in its economy. Foreigners see U.S. Treasurys as a super-safe investment and now own about 30% of the federal government's debt. If they cut back, the federal government would have to pay higher interest rates on Treasury debt to attract a smaller number of potential investors domestically. Higher borrowing costs and reduced investment would wallop the economy, making tariffs the most economically destructive tax available, Smetters said — more than twice as costly in reduced economic growth and wages as what he sees as the next-most damaging: the tax on corporate earnings. Tariffs also hit the poor hardest. They end up being a tax on consumers, and the poor spend more of their income than wealthier people do. Even without the tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill slams the poorest because it makes deep cuts to federal food programs and to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. After the bill's tax and spending cuts, an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found, the poorest fifth of American households earning less than $17,000 a year would see their incomes drop by $820 next year. The richest 0.1% earning more than $4.3 million a year would come out ahead by $390,070 in 2026. 'If you layer a regressive tax increase like tariffs on top of that, you make a lot of low- and middle-income households substantially worse off,'' said the Tax Foundation's York. Overall, she said, tariffs are 'a very unreliable source of revenue for the legal reasons, the political reasons as well as the economic reasons. They're a very, very inefficient way to raise revenue. If you raise a dollar of a revenue with tariffs, that's going to cause a lot more economic harm than raising revenue any other way.''
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
ICE deportation blocked by Boston judge: Migrants now in shipping container in Djibouti
By Lindsay Whitehurst Migrants placed on a deportation flight bound initially for South Sudan are now being held in a converted shipping container on a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the men and their guards are contending with baking hot temperatures, smoke from nearby burn pits and the looming threat of rocket attacks, the Trump administration said. Officials outlined grim conditions in court documents filed Thursday before U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston, who is overseeing a lawsuit challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to swiftly remove migrants to countries they didn't come from. Authorities landed the flight at the base in Djibouti, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from South Sudan, more than two weeks ago after Murphy found the Trump administration had violated his order by swiftly sending eight migrants from countries including Cuba and Vietnam to the east African nation. The judge said that men from other countries must have a real chance to raise fears about dangers they could face in South Sudan. The men's lawyers, though, have still not been able to talk to them, said Robyn Barnard, senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, whose stated mission is to ensure the United States is a global leader on human rights. Barnard spoke Friday at a hearing of Democratic members of Congress and said some family members of the men had been able to talk to them Thursday. The migrants have been previously convicted of serious crimes in the U.S., and President Donald Trump's administration has said that it was unable to return them quickly to their home countries. The Justice Department has also appealed to the Supreme Court to immediately intervene and allow swift deportations to third countries to resume. The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The legal fight became another flashpoint as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president's policies. The Trump administration said the converted conference room in the shipping container is the only viable place to house the men on the base in Djibouti, where outdoor daily temperatures rise above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), according to the declaration from an ICE official. Nearby burn pits are used to dispose of trash and human waste, and the smog cloud makes it hard to breathe, sickening both ICE officers guarding the men and the detainees, the documents state. They don't have access to all the medication they need to protect against infection, and the ICE officers were unable to complete anti-malarial treatment before landing, an ICE official said. 'It is unknown how long the medical supply will last,' Mellissa B. Harper, acting executive deputy associate director of enforcement and removal operations, said in the declaration. The group also lacks protective gear in case of a rocket attack from terrorist groups in Yemen, a risk outlined by the Department of Defense, the documents state. Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this story. AG Andrea Joy Campbell: Know your rights when it comes to ICE (Viewpoint) White House says Mayor Wu calling ICE 'secret police' is 'disgusting' and 'dangerous' Milford High student released from ICE detention: 'Nobody should be in here' 'He's going to be set free' — supporters of Milford teen arrested by ICE cheer release Judge orders Milford teen arrested by ICE to be released on bond Read the original article on MassLive.
