Berrien County Sheriff reflects on his trip to Washington D.C. to push immigration reform

St. JOSPEH, Mich – Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey and 43 other Sheriffs teamed up to push immigration reform in a trip to Washington D.C.

Upon returning to Southwest Michigan Sheriff Bailey spoke with ABC57 about the measures he wants to see enacted as a law.

On Monday Sheriff Bailey laid out his proposals which include increasing funding for ICE, funding the President’s five billion dollar request for a border wall, increased funding for technology including drones monitoring the border and more.  

“Well we’ve been working on these things for 20 years, immigration has been a hot topic for 20 years, I think we’ve moved further to addressing those issues in the last couple of year” Sheriff Bailey said.

Convincing the public and moving ideas through congress will be the next step according to Sheriff Bailey.

St. Joseph resident Dara Schulz says she supports some ideas but she’s not completely sold on it.

“I also believe we need something where they can come over here to work in the farms” Schulz said.

Sheriff Bailey says he’s been told work is being done to implement the H2A program, which is a temporary worker program where immigrants can only come seasonally and must return to their home country.

Sheriff Bailey says he realizes that it’s a controversial topic but his goal is to have everyone documented.

“All they have to do is fill out the paperwork, go through the process of getting vetted” Bailey said.

Sheriff Bailey is optimistic of his proposals passing and he says he expects them to be enacted within two to five years.