In an expected move, the leading organization of the far-right “constitutional sheriffs” movement has endorsed the incoming Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. In a press release this week, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) announced “its full support for the proposed deportation initiatives outlined by former President Donald Trump and former ICE Director Tom Homan.”
Since being selected as the next Trump administration’s “border czar,” Homan has made myriad media appearances and multiple trips to the US-Mexico border to tout plans for mass deportation. During these appearances, Homan also threatened to jail local elected officials and withhold federal funds from jurisdictions opposed to his draconian immigration plans. CSPOA founder Richard Mack claims he’s “had multiple conversations” with Homan about how sheriffs can aid the planned deportation efforts.
CSPOA and the constitutional sheriff movement advocate a far-right theory of county supremacy that ascribes broad authority to local sheriffs in direct contravention of many state and federal laws. CSPOA and its affiliated sheriffs regularly lead opposition efforts against federal government policies and regulations ranging from gun safety measures to reproductive rights. The movement maintains ties to right-wing paramilitaries and militias and is ideologically rooted in the White supremacist and antisemitic Posse Comitatus movement of the 1970s.
As Cloee Cooper’s recent podcast, The Insurgence: Sheriffs, details, CSPOA and its affiliated sheriffs have worked with the previous Trump administration and organized anti-immigrant movement for years to expand the deportation machine. Recent media reports from outlets including Inkstick, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal have detailed how right-wing sheriffs reacted to the presidential election with eagerness to aid mass deportation.
Following the history of anti-immigrant organizing geared towards them, sheriffs were always going to figure into any planned expansion of the deportation machine and attacks on immigrant communities. However the anti-immigrant movement’s goals, shared by CSPOA, go beyond increased deportations. In an appearance on White nationalist Stew Peters’ show, CSPOA’s Mack called for an indeterminate moratorium on all immigration. Peters lightly disagreed with Mack, arguing that such a moratorium should never be lifted. “I don’t like any immigration. I don’t want the watering down of America,” Peters said.
The lack of meaningful daylight between Mack and Peters’ positions is telling. CSPOA’s latest endorsement of mass deportation is further evidence that the constitutional sheriffs movement was never ideologically driven by genuine concerns about the size and scope of the federal government. The movement’s goals continue to be rooted in exclusion and White supremacy.
