The conspiracy case against Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins was dismissed with prejudice on November 12th. Sheriff Jenkins was indicted along with Machine Gun Nest owner, Robert Krop. According to prosecutors, Jenkins had signed legal documents presented by Krop that would allow the Machine Gun Nest to transport and receive guns for the purpose of demonstration by the police force. This was approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). Eventually, it was discovered that the guns were never inspected by the Frederick County Police under Sheriff Jenkins, and the Machine Gun Nest had instead been renting the guns out to consumers, reportedly earning over $100,000 in rentals in 2018 and 2019.
Krop was acquitted in October, after his attorney argued there was no definition of the “demonstration” required by the ATF to inspect the weapons. Shortly after, charges against Jenkins were also dropped. Charges being dismissed under prejudice means it won’t be possible for prosecutors to present the same case to the courts again. After being indicted, Jenkins took a leave of absence. Once he returned to work he was not allowed to carry any firearms. Immediately after charges were dropped, Sheriff Jenkins made a statement, saying, “I believe the DOJ has made every effort to ruin my reputation as sheriff, punish and financially destroy me knowing very well I committed no crimes,” and describing the prosecution to an assassination attempt similar to that of Donald Trump, adding, “It was a near miss. I was injured and I was bloodied but I never gave up the fight and I never will.”
So what has created this supposed animosity against Jenkins? Jenkins has been celebrated and criticized nationally for his strict immigration enforcement. He was named one of “America’s Top 10 ‘Toughest’ Immigration Sheriffs” by Fox News. These sheriffs were defined by Fox as, “vocal, vigilant and very determined to rid their counties of illegal immigrants.”
The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office partnered with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Office (ICE) in one of Jenkins’ first moves as sheriff. They put the Delegation of Immigration Authority Criminal Alien Program, or 287(g), into place with this partnership. “The program” as described by Fox News in its “Toughest Sheriffs” article “which some say leads to racial profiling, trains deputies to check the immigration status of individuals they arrest and has turned over at least 650 illegal immigrants in the county to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation hearings since its inception.”
This program, since its implementation in 2008, has faced plenty of backlash. Most notably, in 2021, Sara Haidee Aleman Medrano, along with the organization Resources for Immigrant Support and Empowerment Coalition of Western Maryland, sued the Frederick County Sheriff’s Department, Frederick County itself, and two deputies. In 2018, Medrano was stopped on the road by deputies for a burnt out taillight, as described by CBS. With her daughter and two infant grandchildren in the car, she was detained for over an hour in her car while deputies awaited a response on Medrano’s immigration status from ICE as part of the 287(g) program. Medrano was awarded $25,000 in damages and $100,000 in legal fees in a settlement. Medrano’s lawsuit specifically focused on Jenkins’ attitudes and policies towards Frederick County immigrants, stating, “His animus toward the immigrant community has manifested into policies and practices that target the immigrant community, isolating and marginalizing them as second class in violation of their rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” Sheriff Jenkins responded with an apology, writing, “you have my sincere apology for the events that occurred during that traffic stop and any fear that they may have caused you.” He also stated that deputies will be more properly trained to avoid instances like this in the future.
This apology comes off as sincere. So where is this prejudice against immigrants in the sheriff’s office starting? According to the ACLU, it comes directly from Jenkins. When Jenkins was indicted in July of 2023, the ACLU filed a complaint against the sheriff. Quoting him calling immigrants, “‘inherently violent,’ ‘illegal aliens,’ and ‘hardcore gangbangers.’” The ACLU goes further, quoting Jenkins saying, “police should ‘round these people up and maybe placing them in Guantanamo until we can deport ‘em.’” Statements such as these are what have earned Jenkins such a controversial name in Frederick County politics.
If Sheriff Jenkins has stood so firmly behind his immigration policy, it must be working, right? Not really. In fact, many studies, as described in a paper by Matthew T. Lee and Ramiro Martinez Jr., found, “That immigration might actually improve neighborhood social control mechanisms and suppress crime.” In addition to this, other studies have found that when immigrants are supported by policy and can become well-established, crime rates are much lower.
Someone like Chuck Jenkins could argue that these facts do not apply to Frederick County. A Frederick County citizen, Gerry Flood, described his research on the topic in a letter to the editor published in the Frederick News Post. He writes, “the county’s serious crime rate has dropped 30 percent from 2008, the first year of the 287(g) program, to 2016.” Chuck Jenkins has publicly attributed this improvement to the 287(g) program. But, when Flood compared these numbers to nearby Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, which have much higher immigrant numbers but do not have the 287(g) program, he found their crime had decreased by even more. He found, “that during the same time period that 287(g) was in operation in Frederick (2008-2016), both counties had substantially greater reductions in serious crime rates than Frederick did… Montgomery’s dropped by 44 percent and Prince George’s dropped by 57 percent.” He concluded that, “These facts undercut the sheriff’s argument and indicate that Frederick might have much greater success in reducing crime rates if it abandons 287(g).” This is a sentiment shared by many in Frederick County, and could be a factor in the DOJ’s decision to charge Jenkins.
So, if 287(g) really isn’t helping, then why is it still in place? The reasoning could be boiled down to misinterpretation of crime data, false rhetoric about the violence of immigrants, or a culture of racism against immigrants that has existed in policing long before Chuck Jenkins. Whether the case against Chuck Jenkins was prejudiced or not, the prejudice against immigrants in Frederick County is what started this battle.
Works Cited
“ACLU Files Federal Administrative Complaint Calling on U.S. Dept of Homeland Security to Investigate the Frederick County Sheriff, Charles Jenkins.” American Civil Liberties Union, 11 July 2023, https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-files-federal-administrative-complaint-calling-on-u-s-dept-of-homeland-security-to-investigate-the-frederick-county-sheriff-charles-jenkins. Accessed 15 November 2024.
“America’s Top 10 Toughest Immigration Sheriffs.” Fox News, Fox News, 12 November 2014, https://www.foxnews.com/us/americas-top-10-toughest-immigration-sheriffs. Accessed 15 November 2024.
Disha, Ilir. “Different Paths: The Role of Immigrant Assimilation on Neighborhood Crime.” Wiley Online Library, Wiley, 26 March 2019, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ssqu.12618. Accessed 15 November 2024.
Fenton, Justin. “Federal prosecutors drop case against Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins.” The Baltimore Banner, 12 November 2024, https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/prosecutors-drop-case-frederick-sheriff-chuck-jenkins-GOLJ4LHL25FJRO4AOG7GRILDMM/. Accessed 2 December 2024.
Flood, Gerry. “Crime rate trends undercut sheriff’s claim that 287(g) reduces crime.” Frederick News Post, Frederick News Post, 27 September 2018, https://www.fredericknewspost.com/opinion/letter_to_editor/crime-rate-trends-undercut-sheriffs-claim-that-287-g-reduces-crime/article_bbc2ffb5-8c32-507d-84f1-575f9cd5802f.html. Accessed 15 November 2024.
Jacoby, Ceoli. “Updated: Feds drop case against sheriff; Jenkins compares prosecution to ‘assassination attempt.’” Frederick News Post, Frederick News Post, 12 November 2024, https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/continuing_coverage/machine_gun_trial/updated-feds-drop-case-against-sheriff-jenkins-compares-prosecution-to-assassination-attempt/article_623bf625-a3f8-54b9-97ec-4330a5489342.html. Accessed 15 November 2024.
Lee, Matthew T., and Ramiro Martinez Jr. “Immigration Reduces Crime: An Emerging Scholarly Concensus.” Untitled, University of Massachusetts, 2009, https://www.umass.edu/preferen/You%20Must%20Read%20This/Lee%20Immigration%20and%20Crime.pdf. Accessed 15 November 2024.
“MD | 287(g) Program.” Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, https://www.frederickcosheriff.com/287g-program. Accessed 15 November 2024.
“Settlement In Racial Bias Case Includes Apology From Frederick County Sheriff.” CBS News, 21 January 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/settlement-in-racial-bias-case-includes-apology-from-frederick-county-sheriff/. Accessed 26 November 2024.
