Idaho county probation officers compile ‘foreign-born list’ to hand over to ICE as critics raise alarms

Here's what stands out: a list of "foreign-born people" is not the same thing as a list of illegal aliens, and any probation officer who can't tell the difference has no business compiling either one. If Canyon County wants to help ICE go after people who violated their probation and their immigration status, fine, that's the job working as intended. But sloppy paperwork that lumps in green card holders, naturalized citizens, and legal residents with actual violators isn't enforcement. It's just careless, and careless enforcement is exactly the kind of thing that hands ammunition to people who want no enforcement at all.

We've said for years that the border and immigration system needed teeth, and that includes cooperation between local law enforcement and federal agencies. That part isn't controversial to us. What is worth criticizing is doing it badly. If the list was built off country-of-birth data instead of actual immigration status, county officials made a shortcut that will blow up in their faces the first time a legal resident gets swept into an ICE inquiry because someone didn't bother to check a box.

The critics raising alarms aren't wrong to ask questions here, even if their objection to the whole concept of local-federal cooperation is where we part ways with them. There's a real difference between "we're helping ICE find people who broke the law" and "we're handing over anyone born somewhere else and letting ICE sort it out." The second version isn't tough on crime. It's just lazy, and it risks turning a legitimate enforcement tool into a mess that courts and advocacy groups will use to gut cooperation programs everywhere else.

If Canyon County wants credit for taking immigration enforcement seriously, it needs to actually verify who's on that list before it goes out the door. Getting this right matters more than getting it fast.