“He’s a bounty hunter. You are empowering a bounty hunter, and he’s bragging about it, and it is upsetting,” she told commissioners.
Commissioner Cindy Carpenter said the board does not have the authority to cancel any contract held by the county sheriff. Deportation efforts have ramped up since President Donald Trump reassumed office in January, and members of the immigrant community have become more fearful of potentially being deported.
The people who spoke to Butler County commissioners said ICE agents are targeting people in minority communities, believing they are undocumented immigrants, causing fear in the immigrant community. They also believe the sheriff is furthering that fear.
Sheriff Jones doesn’t deny it’s lucrative for the county, and doesn’t apologize for that.
What’s happening in southwest Ohio
• Husted and TPS: Immigration enforcement may be forceful in Springfield when Temporary Protected Status for Haitians ends in February. Local advocates recently met with a representative of Ohio’s U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s office and asked about people with asylum or pending asylum status, wondering if they would be “safe” from enforcement. These advocates told the Springfield News-Sun that the answer was no — “they’re not going to be safe here.”
• Intoxicating hemp: Ohio lawmakers tasked with creating a legislative compromise on a regulatory structure for intoxicating hemp products and tweaks to Ohio’s recreational marijuana laws made a deal — intoxicating hemp products will be confined to Ohio’s recreational marijuana dispensaries, while THC beverages could have a slightly more open market for now. This deal, shaped by Congress’ recent decision to effectively ban intoxicating hemp products, will go to the governor’s office for approval.
Other federal updates:
• Epstein files: Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories,” Trump said in a social media post as he announced he had signed the bill.
• Tariffs: In a report delayed for more than seven weeks by the federal government shutdown, the Commerce Department said that the gap between what the U.S. buys from other countries and what it sells to them fell to $59.6 billion in August, from $78.2 billion in July. Imports of goods and services dropped 5% in August from July, when U.S. companies were stocking up on foreign products before Trump finalized taxes on products from almost every country on earth. Those levies went into effect Aug. 7.
• Sudan: Trump said he plans to put greater attention on helping find an end to the brutal civil war in Sudan after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged the president to take action. The fighting for control of Sudan has killed over 40,000 people and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people displaced. Trump admitted the conflict “wasn’t on my charts” before his conversation with the crown prince.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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