COEUR d’ALENE — The number of people booked into the Kootenai County jail on “border patrol hold” is increasing after President Donald Trump issued a slew of executive orders on immigration, while the sheriff’s office promised to continue to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I am in full support of this administration’s posture on illegal immigration to our country,” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris told The Press this week. 

Very few people are jailed in Kootenai County due to their immigration status. In a typical month, the number is as low as two or three. 

But each day this week, multiple people have been booked into jail on border patrol hold in Kootenai County — 14 as of Thursday, according to jail records. 

Most of those people were not contacted by law enforcement and arrested in this county or even in Idaho. Norris estimated that about 80% of local border patrol holds involve people who were detained by federal authorities in Washington or Montana and temporarily handed off to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. 

These inmates are typically held in the Kootenai County jail for a day or so before they’re transferred to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, a privately run immigration prison operated on behalf of ICE. 

The sheriff’s office receives $112 per day to hold a federal prisoner, according to a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service. 

Alycia Moss, an attorney who practices immigration law in Coeur d’Alene, said she believes the increased number of people booked on border patrol holds in Kootenai County is because ICE has expanded its enforcement priorities in response to the Trump administration’s orders. 

“I’m seeing it blow up,” Moss said. “The enforcement is happening in Washington in a significant way.” 

Norris said he’s been informed that federal immigration authorities aim to arrest 1,800 immigrants per day nationwide. 

“They’re active here in Idaho and Washington and Montana,” he said. “We will probably see those (local) numbers go up.” 

Norris said immigration authorities are focused on finding and arresting “criminal aliens” who have allegedly committed criminal offenses while undocumented. He confirmed that individuals who have committed no crimes can be arrested solely because of their immigration status, though he said it’s rare for such a person to be booked into the Kootenai County jail. 

“I have not seen that,” Norris said. “ICE is focused on the criminal element.” 

Moss said expanded enforcement priorities put people at risk of arrest who have not committed crimes and would not ordinarily be targeted.

“Even if ICE or Border Patrol has a target and you’re not on their target list, if you’re around that person and you don’t have documentation or you’ve overstayed or there’s some other issue, you have a chance to be taken, as well,” she said. 

Norris said the sheriff’s office has a strong working relationship with federal immigration authorities. 

One reason for this, he said, is the Keep Washington Working Act. The law prohibits state and local law enforcement officials in Washington from detaining or arresting someone solely to determine their immigration status or based solely on a civil immigration warrant, detainer or hold request.

No similar law exists in Idaho, so the sheriff’s office can hold such individuals in jail after they are transported to Kootenai County from Washington. 

“Border Patrol and ICE here in the Pacific Northwest love to work with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office,” Norris said. “They do not get nearly the same cooperation with agencies in Washington.” 

A new directive empowers immigration officers to enter locations like schools, churches and hospitals, reversing longstanding federal policies that restricted immigration enforcement in such “sensitive locations.” 

Moss said these changes are cause for concern. 

“What are the unintended consequences to the community and those individuals and their families when they’re scared to go to school for parent-teacher conferences, they’re scared to go to the hospital, they’re scared to go to church?” she said. “It degrades community cohesiveness.” 

Indeed, in communities throughout Idaho, questions swirl about how these directives will be carried out. Last week, in Twin Falls County, Sheriff Jack Johnson refuted rumors that local law enforcement was removing children from schools based on their immigration status. 

“We have not been engaged in this process and have no plans to pull children out of schools,” Johnson said in a statement. “We will work with Immigration and Customs to remove criminal illegal aliens from our communities and provide what housing we can in our jail facility.”