Lancaster's democratic state Reps. Ismail Smith-Wade-El, center, and Nikki Rivera, brown coat, speak outside Lancaster County's government offices at a protest against the sheriff's cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Lancaster's democratic state Reps. Ismail Smith-Wade-El, center, and Nikki Rivera, brown coat, speak outside Lancaster County's government offices at a protest against the sheriff's cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
Lancaster’s sheriff is facing public pressure to end his office’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On Tuesday, over 70 people filled the seats and spilled into the hallway of Lancaster County’s unusually crowded Prison Board meeting.
They were there to present the sheriff with a petition signed by more than 2,700 people from Lancaster and the surrounding area. Their goal is to get the sheriff to stop coordinating with immigration enforcement as part of the federal 287(g) program.
The Prison Board has no sway over the 287(g) program, but activists used the meeting as an opportunity to address the sheriff in a public setting.
“I really believe the 287(g) task force agreement is eroding the trust between law enforcement officers and citizens, making it less safe for both,” said Valerie Shenk, a nurse and local organizer with the liberal advocacy group Indivisible.
She said she first met with Sheriff Christopher Leppler in August of last year to ask him to rescind the formal working agreement with ICE, which he entered into on April 24, 2025. Since he didn’t, Shenk said she started the petition.
Shenk was one of 13 speakers who used the public comment period of the meeting to state a trust for local law enforcement but not federal immigration enforcement, reference Lancaster’s history as a welcoming place for refugees, and reference their Christian values of helping people in need.
Leppler said he has been “inundated with concerns from the community,” but that there is a lot of misunderstanding or misrepresentation of his office’s work with ICE.
Leppler said working with ICE is a normal part of law enforcement operations that doesn’t change how local officers do their jobs, and that his office does not pull additional resources in order to coordinate with ICE.
“If I rescinded the 287(g) program today, nothing would change tomorrow,” he said. He did not address public questions about why his office entered into the program if it didn’t change anything.
There are different types of 287(g) agreements. The Lancaster Sheriff’s Office follows the “task-force model,” which ICE describes on its website as “a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.”
When Lancaster sheriff officers encounter someone “who potentially has an ICE detainer on them,” Leppler said, the officers would then contact ICE and seek guidance on whether to detain, release, or collect additional information on the person.
“We’re not going out into the community, we’re not going out into businesses, we’re not just going out and checking people’s immigration status,” Leppler said. “This is in the normal course of our duties.”
District Attorney Heather Adams also said there was misinformation about working with ICE and that her office was planning a press release within the next week to address public concerns. She declined to say during the meeting what information was incorrect.
Both of Lancaster’s Republican county commissioners, Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino, said they support continued cooperation with ICE. They make up two of the commission’s three votes and also serve on the Prison Board.
“I fully support the sheriff and the district attorney and their cooperation with ICE,” Parsons said. “Homicide rates are dropping across the country, I think in part because of immigration enforcement.”
Parsons did not present evidence to back his statement.
Violent and property crimes have dropped since historic highs during the pandemic. Research also shows that, both recently and historically, documented and undocumented immigrants are charged with crimes and incarcerated at lower rates than U.S. citizens and that undocumented migration does not increase violence.
D’Agostino said it is important for law enforcement agencies to be able to coordinate with each other.
“I think it’s very dangerous to take issues, I’ll say national issues but any issue that happens somewhere else outside of Lancaster County, and plop it in here into Lancaster County,” he said.
The members of the public, who did not cheer or shout at any other point in the meeting, interrupted Parsons’ and D’Agostino’s statements with shouts of disagreement.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
More than 70 people attended the Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026 Lancaster Prison Board meeting to ask the county sheriff to stop working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
After the meeting, Shenk and others made speeches outside the county’s offices saying they’ll keep up the pressure on local officials. They referenced other jurisdictions that have backed out of working with ICE, including the Quarryville Police and Bucks County where opposition to the ICE partnership helped elect a new sheriff.
Democratic state Representatives Ishmail Smith-Wade-El and Nikki Rivera, who each represent parts of Lancaster, spoke out against local coordination with ICE.
“We are demanding that all organs of Lancaster County government suspend 287(g) agreements with ICE,” Smith-Wade-El said. “They only serve to further divide our communities, they only serve to increase the fear and distrust that our neighbors feel and separate them from the services and the neighbors and the community members that they need.”
Rivera followed and said the protest Tuesday was meant to prevent increased ICE presence in the area.
“Our objective today, to come to the Prison Board meeting, was to express that at a county level, we expect a high standard of public safety around here and ICE simply doesn’t cut it,” Rivera said, and added she was referring people to Senator John Fetterman’s office to report abuse or violence by ICE.
Shenk said she didn’t expect Leppler to immediately rescind the 287(g) agreement, but she was happy with the turnout.
“I don’t know what our next concrete steps are, but I definitely know the plan is just to keep the pressure up, to keep going out there, protecting our neighbors, protecting our community, and trying to just keep the pressure up on our elected officials and showing them how we feel and what Lancaster stands for,” she said.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
