The mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, has changed the city’s immigration detainer policy following a warning from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that it could face legal repercussions. Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat, has agreed to extend the notice period for federal authorities from 5-12 hours to 48 hours, thereby avoiding the designation of the city as a ‘sanctuary’ city, which could lead to financial consequences and litigation. The change aligns with pre-2017 practices, which are seen as more cooperative with federal immigration enforcement.
The decision to revise the policy comes after the DOJ had warned in a letter last month that Louisville’s detainer policy hindered the Trump administration’s ability to crack down on immigration there. The DOJ told Greenberg that non-compliant states and cities have faced legal action and freezes on federal funding. Detainer policies are one of the most common reasons that cities become designated as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses detainer forms to notify jails that federal authorities have identified a possible illegal immigrant in local custody that ICE wants to detain. Sanctuary jurisdictions have policies in place to ignore those notices. In the case of Louisville, the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections was not honoring the 48-hour period ICE requested to hold suspects, thereby releasing the suspects from custody before ICE could arrest them.
The revelation of Louisville’s policy shift comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi mentioned Tuesday morning in an X post that the city was ‘dropping its sanctuary city policies,’ though she did not mention details. Bondi said that this should set an example to other cities and that forcing them to sue would be a consequence if they do not follow the law and stop sanctuary policies. The DOJ has also brought immigration-related lawsuits in New York, Chicago, Colorado, and elsewhere, though judges have not yet weighed in on the government’s arguments in these cases.