Sheriff talks immigration, law enforcement

COEUR d’ALENE — Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris played to a full house Wednesday night, when more than 120 people gathered in the county administration building for a town hall meeting with Norris and representatives from U.S. Border Patrol.

Kootenai County Commissioner Bruce Mattare, who emceed the town hall, said surveys filled out by the crowd indicated attendees were primarily concerned about “illegal immigration,” followed by gun rights, crime, traffic and “social issues.”

Norris said he believes people who have entered the country illegally are impacting Kootenai County.

“Three or four years ago, we would have a deputy that would need a translator in our jail maybe once every four months with an inmate who only spoke Spanish,” Norris said. “That has come down to maybe once a week. We would have patrol deputies out in the field request a Spanish speaker every three months. Now it’s once a week.”

At that, the crowd groaned in dismay.

Norris indicated a number of foreign nationals are currently held in the Kootenai County jail but it’s unclear how many. The jail’s in-custody report showed that five inmates out of more than 500 appeared to be on “border patrol hold” Wednesday night.

Norris said his agency is aware of rumors that white buses are carrying “illegal aliens” throughout the area but the rumors aren’t credible.

“We can’t substantiate that these white buses are transporting illegal aliens,” Norris said. “I know it’s a big deal on social media but we just don’t see it.”

Lloyd Easterling, chief patrol agent of the Spokane sector for the U.S. Border Patrol, said Border Patrol makes every effort to respond to calls from the sheriff’s office and other area law enforcement agencies. From there, agents process the individuals and get more information about them.

What happens to the person depends on multiple factors, including any criminal history.

“If they have little to none, we’ll work with that,” Easterling said. “The easy answer is we’ll process them and let them walk right down the street.”

People who have “egregious” criminal records may be turned over to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or another agency. If someone has been previously deported from the U.S., that’s “almost a guaranteed ticket” out of the country again, Easterling said.

Norris said his biggest concern related to immigration is drug trafficking. He pointed to two recent traffic stops as examples — one in Kootenai County where deputies seized 16 pounds of meth and one in Shoshone County, which allegedly yielded more than 9,000 fentanyl pills.

The three men arrested in the two cases are all from Yakima, Wash., according to police.

Easterling said the Tri-Cities in Washington are “troublesome” when it comes to drug trafficking.

“It’s an easy connection from the southern border,” he said. “It connects to a whole series of arterials and allows people to move these hard narcotics across the north and the midwest easier.”

Norris addressed other topics during the town hall, including his belief that Idaho should institute more mandatory minimum sentences for certain criminal offenses and that raising the monetary threshold for the crime of petit theft would increase theft rates.

One attendee asked Norris about the Hayden City Council’s recent decision to explore the possibility of developing its own police force. Hayden currently contracts with the sheriff’s office to provide law enforcement services.

Norris said his office is glad to serve Hayden but believes the city’s current law enforcement model is unsustainable.

“The city of Hayden is not able to afford its own police department,” he said. “I believe we will always serve the city of Hayden.”