Idaho probation officers gave ICE a ‘foreign-born’ list — and the outrage machine fires up

BS BULLETIN

Canyon County probation officers compiled a list of 82 foreign-born probationers for ICE; only seven were already identified as having ICE holds.
Emails show officers sometimes tipped ICE to the exact time probationers would arrive for appointments.
County officials say cooperation with ICE — including requests for lists — goes back across administrations, apparently as far as Obama.

Here comes another immigration controversy where the headline practically arrives carrying its own smelling salts.

Probation officers in Canyon County, Idaho, have been working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify foreign-born offenders under their supervision, even alerting federal agents when certain probationers would show up for scheduled appointments.

The newly released emails are certainly eye-opening. But they also tell a somewhat more complicated story than simply “Idaho makes immigrant list for Trump.” More than 140 emails obtained by InvestigateWest cover communications between Canyon County’s misdemeanor probation department and ICE’s Boise office from May through July. The records show county officials compiling information for ICE and, in some cases, giving federal agents remarkably precise information about where and when a probationer could be found.

In one May exchange, senior probation officer Norma Naranjo told six ICE agents that a man’s scheduled meeting remained set for 7:30 the following morning. When he arrived, she sent another message:

“He is here are you guys on your way?”

The records are heavily redacted, so it isn’t clear whether ICE ultimately arrested the man. But that wasn’t the only coordination. According to InvestigateWest, probation officers sometimes supplied ICE with appointment dates and times, asked whether missing probationers were already in federal custody and, in one case, provided a probationer’s home address along with the make, model and license plate of his vehicle.

And this is where the story gets interesting. On June 5, probation department director Jeff Breach instructed his staff that ICE had requested a list of offenders believed to be in the country illegally. “I need you to go through your caseload this month and send me a list of names of offenders who you believe are in the country illegally,” Breach wrote.

He said he would review the names and send the resulting list to ICE so federal authorities could determine immigration status and decide whether enforcement action was warranted. That’s considerably different from an order saying, “Give me everybody born in another country.”

But at least some employees apparently cast a much wider net. Probation officer Brandon Black replied with what he described as everybody in his files who had filled out an intake form stating that they were not born in the United States:

“That’s everyone in my cabinet that filled out (an) intake form and stated not born in US.”

And there’s the legitimate problem. Being born outside America obviously does not mean someone is here illegally. Naturalized American citizens were born outside the country. So were millions of lawful permanent residents and other legal immigrants. The redacted list obtained by InvestigateWest contained 82 probationers. More than half — 54% — were reportedly on probation for DUI offenses. Five were on probation for drug-related crimes and nine for disturbing the peace. Only seven were listed as already having an ICE hold.

Immigration attorney Nikki Ramirez-Smith called the practice “an invasion of privacy.” “It’s one thing to know that someone is undocumented,” she told InvestigateWest, “it’s another thing to just start targeting every single person who was born in another country.”

Breach’s answer is essentially that determining who is legally present isn’t his department’s job. The list, he said, includes people whose birthplace is a foreign country and can include individuals previously flagged with immigration holds. “Verifying and determining legal presence/status, along with any related enforcement, is within the purview of federal authorities,” Breach said. In other words: probation supplies the information; ICE figures out who is actually deportable.

And here’s a rather important nugget that could easily disappear from the national narrative. Breach said ICE has typically requested lists of potentially illegal immigrants annually and “across administrations.” Canyon County constituent services director Steve Cushman said he wasn’t certain when the practice began, but his understanding is that it reaches “as far as the Obama administration.”

Well, now.

Somehow “Trump’s ICE creates sinister immigrant list” doesn’t have quite the same ring when somebody whispers, They were doing this during Obama, too.

Canyon County also isn’t some random jurisdiction that suddenly discovered immigration enforcement this summer. The county has a long and contentious history of cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

In 2019, Canyon County jail personnel were reportedly instructed to alert immigration authorities about “all foreign born inmates” entering the jail. According to earlier Idaho Press reporting cited by InvestigateWest, some people flagged under that practice turned out to be U.S. citizens. The county subsequently faced lawsuits involving people allegedly held after they had posted bond, and at least one case ended with a $13,000 settlement.

There’s also a much more recent fight. The ACLU and several Idaho families sued federal and local law-enforcement agencies in February over the massive October 2025 raid at La Catedral, a horse-racing venue in Wilder. The lawsuit alleges that roughly 400 attendees were detained and that U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents were swept up in the operation. Those are allegations being litigated, not established findings. Federal authorities, meanwhile, said the operation resulted in 105 immigration arrests. That history explains why immigration attorneys are scrutinizing Canyon County’s newest disclosures so closely.

But there’s another side of this that deserves more than a sentence. These aren’t random pedestrians whose names probation officers plucked out of the phone book. They are people already under government supervision after entering the criminal-justice system. Breach argues probation officers routinely cooperate with law enforcement and that having officers meet offenders at the probation office provides a controlled environment that is safer for everybody involved.

He estimates ICE agents have appeared at roughly one or two probation appointments per month during the past three months. So the legitimate question isn’t whether local authorities should cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Of course law-enforcement agencies cooperate with one another.

The real question is whether foreign birth alone should have been used by some probation officers as the filter for deciding whose names ICE received. That’s where Canyon County officials have some explaining to do.

MY QUICK TAKE

Oh, I can already hear the cable-news chyron machine warming up:

TRUMP’S IDAHO IMMIGRANT LIST!!!

Cue ominous music. Find somebody from the ACLU. Locate a constitutional scholar who hasn’t slept since November 2016. We’re off to the races.

Except there’s one pesky little detail hiding under the sofa cushions: Canyon County says these ICE requests have been happening across administrations and may go back to Barack Obama.

Whoops.

Suddenly the jackboots have loafers.

Still, somebody in Canyon County needs to learn the difference between “foreign-born” and “illegal alien.” They aren’t synonyms. My problem with illegal immigration has never been that immigrants were born somewhere else. That’s rather the defining feature of immigration.

If ICE wants to know whether somebody on probation is here illegally, send ICE information about people for whom there’s an actual reason to suspect illegal status. Let the federal government check its databases and enforce federal law.

But “born somewhere else” is one mighty sloppy dragnet.

At the same time, spare me the idea that a probation office coordinating with federal law enforcement is itself some shocking civil-liberties apocalypse. These people are on probation. Probation officers routinely know where offenders live, what they’re driving and when they’re required to appear. That’s sort of how probation works.

And if someone who violated American law also has no legal right to be in America? I have a radical proposal: Perhaps the federal agency whose name literally contains the words Immigration and Customs Enforcement might want to know about him. Call me old-fashioned.