On the Record delivers insights and opinions from Montana’s most influential newsmakers and experts in conversation with the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press. When federal immigration officials asked the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office to provide confidential criminal justice information about a county resident last fall, Democratic Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell declined.  Now, Cromwell is standing off with Montana’s Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen in a dispute before the state Supreme Court. As the administration of President Donald Trump pursues mass deportations nationwide, Cromwell is one of multiple local officials inside and outside Montana who find themselves at the center of a politically fraught fight about how much to cooperate with federal immigration agents.  Tensions spiked last spring when Knudsen demanded Cromwell’s office rescind what he said was a “policy” of not sharing certain information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He also invoked “supervisory control” over the office, directing Cromwell to share the requested information with ICE. Cromwell denied the existence of any such policy, said her office didn’t believe ICE was entitled to the information, refused Knudsen’s order, and asked the Montana Supreme Court to weigh in.  As she awaits that ruling, Montana Free Press spoke with Cromwell about her stance on immigration enforcement, the county’s dispute with Knudsen, and what’s at stake.   Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.  Nora Mabie: Federal immigration officials carried out multiple operations around Bozeman in the last week of June. In some instances individuals were reportedly pulled over, and in others, groups of people were arrested en masse. What have you observed about immigration enforcement in Gallatin County, and what are you hearing from constituents?  Audrey Cromwell: Where I personally observe most of the touchpoints with immigration are within the criminal justice system. So, we see most folks being deported after they’ve been arrested for a crime, and then, pursuant to state law, the detention center officials call ICE out of Billings, if someone reports on their intake form that they are foreign-born. Then ICE will run that individual through their system and report back to the detention center. There were a lot of reports in June related to ICE activity in Bozeman and Gallatin County. What I can say is that we don’t know how many people were taken by ICE. There were reports anywhere from 20 to 100. I think the difficulty in tracking who’s been removed from our communities is concerning.  Mabie: In April, Austin Knudsen invoked “supervisory control” over your office, which grants the attorney general power to oversee and direct county attorneys in their official duties. What has that looked like in practice? What has that tangibly meant for your office? What has changed, if anything? Cromwell: So, leading up to him invoking the right of supervisory control, I had already relinquished control over advice related to confidential criminal justice information requests. Essentially, he was ordering me to provide ICE with all information, regardless of whether they were asking in a criminal or a civil context, and my reading of the statute, which is the heart of our lawsuit in front of the Supreme Court, is that if ICE is asking for civil immigration purposes, they don’t qualify as a criminal justice agency under that specific statute for the right to receive information directly from [the county’s] records [department].  So, my advice to records when ICE asked for information was: if they’re asking for a civil purpose, then they need to go through the court, the judicial process. When the attorney general stated that I needed to provide that information directly to ICE without going through the judicial process, I relinquished control over that piece to him so that our records department could reach out to him directly. One of my responsibilities as county attorney is to protect the county from liability. I cannot ethically advise a county department to do something that I don’t think is legal.  I relinquished control over that piece to him, and then, really for show, he invoked supervisory control over that piece that I had already relinquished control over. In practice, what it ultimately has meant is that I report every week whether or not ICE has requested any information from our records department, and that’s it.  Mabie: I read the recent profile on you in The New Republic, and one thing that stood out to me is you said that after Knudsen exerted supervisory control, you were “worried enough to take all my personal stuff home with me.” What specifically were you worried about? Cromwell: Well, I think in the past, the attorney general has shown the community and Montana what he’s willing to do. The example that sticks out in my mind is the example with St. Peter’s in Helena, when he sent Highway Patrol troopers to the hospital regarding an Ivermectin incident. I didn’t know to what extent the supervisory control would be, and I was worried that he was going to send Montana Highway Patrol troopers to my office. I don’t know necessarily what that would have looked like, but I was worried enough to take home my personal possessions just in case they physically took over my office or something. I didn’t know what to expect.  Mabie: Going back to when Knudsen ordered your office to share certain information with ICE, and you didn’t, and you instead filed a petition with the Montana Supreme Court — how did you come to that decision? What factors did you consider, and what risks were you weighing? Cromwell: The first piece that I was weighing was my legal responsibility. I have a requirement to protect the county, and when I think that the law is written in such a way that it’s clear what information we can or cannot share, I am going to follow my own interpretation.   I felt the attorney general was ordering me to do something that was not lawful. It brings up a larger constitutional question of power, authority, the attorney general’s supervisory control over county attorneys. At that moment, I felt like I needed the Supreme Court to weigh in with an opinion as to whose legal interpretation is correct so that I can proceed with cover of the law.  Mabie: Did turning to the court come with risk to you or your office?  Cromwell: Absolutely it did. There was personal cost to me. There was a lot of pressure on my office and my attorneys, and that caused a lot of stress. There’s also personal time costs, attorney time costs, because it takes time to file lawsuits and then respond appropriately. When I think about the personal cost, I really had to weigh whether or not it was worth the risk.  Mabie: You’re running for re-election in November. Your Republican challenger, Jordan Salo, has campaigned on the dispute with Knudsen, alleging that you are not complying with the law. And in a recent Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll, we found that about 6 in 10 Montanans support local law enforcement working with ICE. Do you think this conflict could affect your chances in the election?  Cromwell: I think something that’s interesting about this specific issue is it’s very narrow. Our county continues to collaborate with federal law enforcement and with ICE pursuant to state law, and there are pros and cons to that statute.  A pro is that nobody wants dangerous people in our communities, right? So if there is an individual who is dangerous and they are not in the country legally, then it makes sense for those individuals to be removed from our community. Where it gets a little bit trickier is on some of the lower-level offenses. This is the big change we’ve seen with the Trump administration. Even if that individual has [legal immigration] status, but they’re not a citizen or they don’t have a Green Card, there’s a possibility they will be deported after they’ve been arrested for a DUI, for example, or a traffic ticket that has jail time.  Mabie: Let’s say voters have seen headlines about this conflict, but aren’t super familiar with the technicalities. What do you say to people who just want to understand your stance on immigration enforcement in Montana?  Cromwell: My feeling on immigration enforcement is that it’s a federal obligation, that the state should not have a lot to do with it.  My hope would be that Congress would pass some kind of immigration reform that would really make pathways into this country easier for individuals. That hasn’t happened. So, I think the federal government has been pushing enforcement lower and lower and lower to the local level where, frankly, local governments aren’t equipped to handle these types of issues.  Mabie: You alluded to this earlier, but the dispute with Knudsen began when ICE asked your office for criminal justice information about an individual in Gallatin County. Now it’s snowballed into something much bigger. What do you think this conflict is really about, and what’s at stake? Cromwell: It’s a constitutional question, in my mind, about how much authority the statewide elected attorney general has over countywide elected county attorneys.  Mabie: And why should Montanans care about this?  Cromwell: One is privacy. What are the privacy expectations in Montana, and are those changing? The second is when local officials are voted in by the community, the community has certain expectations, and the community’s voice gets overridden if the attorney general can exercise this type of power. Why do we even have county attorneys that are elected if the attorney general can override every decision that we make? Mabie: Do you have any expectation of when the Supreme Court might rule?  Cromwell: Oh my gosh. I keep telling everybody two weeks, but it’s been like four months. I have no idea.  The post On the Record: Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less