The Lyon County Board on Tuesday directed County Attorney Abby Wikelius to begin drafting a letter asking for an explanation as to why the County last week was listed as one of 20 in Minnesota as a sanctuary county on the Department of Homeland Security’s website.
That list has since been removed from the DHS website; Lyon County commissioners are not the only ones befuddled with the county’s inclusion on the list, and they want an explanation as to why they were on it in the first place, and also want the public to know that the county is complying with all laws and that it is working to get removed from the list.
“A lot of people were not very happy that we were on that list,” Commissioner Todd Draper said. “Sunday night, the list disappeared for lack of consistency and accuracy. North Dakota filed a claim against Homeland Security.”
Wikelius said she is not aware of why Lyon County was on the list.
“There is no definition of sanctuary counties that I’m aware of, so I don’t know how the Department of Homeland Security came up with such a list,” she said. “I think we would all be interested in knowing why we were included; I think there needs to be more information provided to a county before they’re on a list like that.”
She went on to say that Lyon County, to her knowledge, never received any documentation as to why they were included on the list.
A sanctuary county is a label applied to local governments that limits their cooperation with federal immigration authorities. This means they are less likely to share information about undocumented immigrants with federal agencies like ICE or to hold them for deportation.
“We are fully compliant with Minnesota laws,” Commissioner Paul Graupmann said. “In South Dakota, if an ICE retainer was given, it is expected they would continue to hold a person until ICE shows up. We communicate with ICE and cooperate with ICE, but we do not retain (illiegal immigants) until their sentencing.”
Draper said he had heard that information on the list was not complete and that the information on it was leaked, “because in all reality, every county in Minnesota should be on that list because of our state statute that says if you’re serving for 20 days and ICE calls and says it can’t be there until 21 days, we cannot hold them because they served their sentence.”
County Administrator Loren Stomberg expressed concern over staffing if the County was required to hold an illegal immigrant.
“We want the public to know … we’re trying to get off the list,” Commissioner Chair Gary Crowley said. “But it’s almost impossible. The Sheriff tried that in January and got almost nowhere. Not everybody saw that (DHS) took it down, but they remember it was up.”
Online articles still show Lyon County on the list, as well as Lincoln, Cottonwood, Nobles and Pipestone counties.
In other business from Tuesday …
• The board granted an on-sale liquor license for 5 Family Ranch, with the addition of a Sunday liquor license.
• The board heard an update of the actuates of the Plum Creek Library System.
• The board moved to establish a Redetermination of Benefits for Lyon County ditches 24 and 29.
• The board moved to adopt a resolution to allow service animals only into County buildings. Only limited inquires by staff in the Government Center are allowed: Is the animal a service animal required because of a disability; and what work or task has the animal been trained to perform? Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documntation, require an ID card or training documentation for the animal or ask the animal demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
• The board established a Joint Drainage Authority for Murray County JD 27: Crowley from Lyon County; and Mark Carlson, Loy Woelber, Dennis Welgraven and Roger Zins from Murray County.
