Lake County ICE Partnership: Residents Call For Immediate End.
When the Lake County Sheriff’s Office announced it had signed agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, county residents and civil-rights groups reacted quickly in opposition.
Alexandria Rose. Structures In The Wild. Lake County Ohio Sheriff Frank Leonbruno and US DHS: ICE agree to mutual cooperation in Lake County, OH.
PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Activist groups including Lake-Geauga Fights Back Network and DSA Cleveland are assembling to protest Monday evening, October 20th 2025, outside of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Assembled activists are showing their opposition to deals signed between DHS-ICE and Lake County Sheriff Frank Leonbruno the week of September 8th.
To date, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office has not detained anyone under its new agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), because training is still required before the limited participation can begin. Agreements were signed on May 28, 2025, known as the Task Force Model and the Warrant Service Officer Program.
Sheriff Leonbruno’s agreements — under the 287(g) program — include local-federal immigration partnerships that honor federal detainers and provide limited operational assistance during regular police duties.
Sheriff Frank Leonbruno:
“We will not participate in ICE raids at businesses, schools, or neighborhoods unless specifically requested for high-risk warrants involving violent offenders or cartel members. We will not initiate independent investigations related to immigration law violations.”
Dave DeNatale of WKYC 3 quotes Lake County Sheriff Frank Leonbruno.
Deputies may detain individuals flagged by ICE during traffic stops and other routine encounters. However, the Sheriff’s office states that it will not participate in immigration raids “Unless there are violent criminals or cartel members present.”
Lake County Sheriff’s Department is also cooperating under I-247(N), I-247(D): The ICE Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).
Here’s what you need to know about PEP:
Purpose: To inform local law enforcement about an individual’s immigration status and request their cooperation in transferring custody to ICE.
Mechanism: An I-247 detainer is a notice and a request, not a legal order to detain someone indefinitely. It relies on the cooperation of the local law enforcement agency.
Requests:
Hold for transfer: Some I-247 forms (like Form I-247D) request that the agency maintain custody of a person for up to 48 hours past their otherwise scheduled release time so ICE can assume custody.
Notification of release: Other I-247 forms (like Form I-247N) request that the agency notify ICE at least 48 hours before an individual is scheduled for release.
Service: A copy of the detainer must be served on the individual for it to be considered valid.
Enforcement priorities: The specific type of I-247 form may vary depending on the individual’s circumstances and the enforcement priorities being used by ICE.
Contesting detainers: Individuals have the right to contest the information on the form, but there is no specific process for contesting it directly through the detainer itself. Detainers can be challenged in court, and some forms have dedicated space for the detainee to be served, which is required for the detainer to be valid.
The Sheriff’s Department has agreed to cooperate with detention of individuals under I-247(D) and on imminent release of detainee notice to ICE under I-247(N).
ABC News 5 Cleveland’s Catherine Ross reports that the Lake County Sheriff’s Department also signed a second agreement with ICE, called the: “Warrant Service Officer” (WSO) program,” which Ross describes as an authorization for “trained jail staff to serve and execute ICE warrants on current Lake County jail inmates. If a person set for release is found to be in the country illegally, the jail will hold the inmate for up to 48 hours until ICE agents retrieve the person.
Sheriff Leonbruno says that the agreements will not alter county jail operations, and states the county jail will “not become an ICE detention center, or house immigration detainees under a pay-for-stay model.”
ACLU of Ohio, on August 27, 2025, contested the legality of such agreements under Ohio state law. The American Civil Liberties Union sent letters to sheriffs in Butler, Fairfield, Fayette, Geauga, Lake, Portage, Mahoning, and Seneca counties, as well as to the Executive Director of the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio. These letters “demanded the county sheriffs immediately release the immigrants who are being held unlawfully and immediately cease carrying out any unlawful immigration enforcement.”
ACLU argues that “only county commissioners have the authority and power to execute contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Prior agreements between sheriffs and ICE are therefore invalid and hold no legal force.”
“Attorney General Yost has made abundantly clear that all county agreements with ICE must be authorized by the board of county commissioners. County sheriffs cannot bootstrap themselves into having this authority. Striking these agreements means there is no legal authority to hold the immigrants currently incarcerated in our county jails. The people detained under these invalid agreements are being held unconstitutionally and must be released immediately. It’s necessary to understand as well that there is no obligation for local counties to participate at all in federal immigration enforcement, and partnership with ICE does not improve public safety or protect our communities,” Freda Levenson. Letter to The Sheriffs. Legal Director for the ACLU of Ohio.
Lake-Geauga Fights Back Network (LGFBN) Social media. Invitation and rallying call to protest the Lakewood Sherriff’s agreements with ICE on Monday, October 20th, at 104 E. Erie St in Painesville.
The Fight Ahead
Lake County residents are called to action by the Lake-Geauga Fights Back Network (LGFBN) and Cleveland DSA. LGFBN have hosted prior community organizer training events, community potlucks, trauma skills workshops, and “Know Your Rights” workshops to Lake County residents. The organization has established itself with the mission to protect local immigrants, inform the local community on how it may join the struggle, and teach immigrant communities, who may be under threat, tactics and legal recourse in the event of an encounter with local law enforcement or ICE.
Cleveland DSA has recently launched an “Immigrant Rights” project, which seeks to accomplish much of the same mission. Thus far, Cleveland DSA has partnered up unofficially with LGFBN in the struggle for immigrant rights and the mission to inform. As a member of Cleveland DSA, Alexandria Rose has recently accepted a nomination to Immigrant Rights project leadership.
Fear and undue worry are the reactions of some in the local community. A Lyft driver, who requested to remain anonymous, described to this publication the details under which he feels his life and family are under constant daily threat.
Translating from Spanish: “I think, I am scared! One day I might be pulled over for a light, or something, and the police may take me to jail because of my appearance, because I speak la lengua. I am allowed to be here, to work, and I want to continue to be a parent to my children.”
The concerns of this local worker are not unfounded. ABC 5 Cleveland’s Catherine Ross published another point of view from LGFBN’s Connor Marrot.
“People are being asked consistently about their immigration status if they appear to be Hispanic, if they’re playing Spanish music. People have been asked to get out of their car, they’ve been asked to consent to searches in ways that wouldn’t have been expected before.”
Connor Marrott, organizer with the Lake-Geauga Fights Back Network.
This phenomenon is not exclusive to Ohio. Nassau County, New York, has entered into similar agreements with ICE, as reported by the New York Post. Nassau County has detained more than 2,200 migrants for ICE since February 2025, up from 1,400 as reported in July by Brandon Cruz of NYP. Nassau County averages 274 detentions per month, with June being the busiest month at 437 detainees.
While Lake County Sheriff Frank Leonbruno and other residents claim that the partnership with ICE will expand public safety by “cracking down on violent illegal immigrants,” the Ohio ACLU, LGFBN, DSA Cleveland, and local Lake County residents remain on edge in what may be described as an illegal erosion of civil liberties and needless fearmongering for vulnerable residents.
This remains an ongoing story.