NAMPA (AP)— Canyon County commissioners have set aside $100,000 to train sheriff's deputies on federal immigration laws so they can arrest and detain undocummented immigrants and help have them deported.
The deputies are to be trained with the help of officials from Immigration and Custom Enforcement.
"It's going to allow Canyon County Sheriff's officers to act in the capacity of ICE if and when they deem it through their training to be appropriate," Commissioner Robert Vasquez told the Idaho Press Tribune.
Vasquez, a strident anti-illegal immigration activist and unsuccessful U.S. congressional candidate, said a section of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act gives state and local law enforcement agencies the power to enforce immigration laws.
"There is nothing racist in law enforcement," he said. "There is no bigotry in defending our citizens from the threat of exposure to illnesses brought into this country and Canyon County by illegal aliens. There is no discrimination in training our law enforcement officers to implement immigration law when the federal government is obviously failing to do so."
The commissioners voted Monday to move the money from the 2007 county budget into a reserve fund. Commissioners did not say how many deputies would be trained.
"Over time the message will be understood that Canyon County, Idaho, is not the place for illegal aliens to look for economic opportunity at the expense of our United States citizens," Vasquez said in a prepared statement.