Idaho County Compiles Foreign-Born Probation List for ICE Without Legal Status Verification

In Canyon County, Idaho, the probation department has been handing over lists of foreign-born people to federal immigration authorities without first checking whether those individuals are actually in the country illegally. Between May and July of 2026, more than 140 emails between county probation officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents reveal a coordinated effort to identify and flag probationers based solely on where they were born—a practice that has alarmed immigration attorneys and civil rights advocates.

The mechanics of the operation are straightforward and troubling. In early June, the probation department's director sent an email to his staff asking them to compile a list of people they believed were in the country without authorization. One officer responded by listing everyone in his caseload who had stated on their intake form that they were not born in the United States. Another officer identified a single person he thought might be undocumented, noting only that the man had carried a Mexican ID during his last arrest. Foreign birth alone, however, tells nothing about legal status. Naturalized citizens and green card holders are foreign-born. So are people with pending asylum claims and valid work visas. The list that emerged included more than 140 names, yet only seven of those individuals had existing ICE holds—meaning the federal government had already flagged them for potential deportation.

What makes the arrangement particularly concerning is how probation officers began coordinating with ICE agents around the timing of probation appointments. In one case, a senior probation officer named Norma Naranjo emailed six ICE agents to alert them that a probationer would be arriving for his regular check-in at 7:30 a.m. on a May morning. The next day, when the man showed up a few minutes early, she emailed again: "He is here are you guys on your way?" The heavily redacted emails do not make clear whether ICE agents took the man into custody at his appointment, but the pattern is evident. Officers were providing ICE with the dates, times, and locations where probationers would be present and vulnerable. In some instances, they also supplied home addresses and vehicle descriptions.

The vast majority of people on the list were not serious offenders. More than half were on probation for driving under the influence. Five were there for drug-related crimes. Nine were listed for disturbing the peace. These are people whose legal status—whether they are citizens, permanent residents, or undocumented—should have been verified before their names were handed to federal authorities. Instead, the probation department treated foreign birthplace as sufficient grounds for referral.

When asked whether the county was concerned that U.S. citizens or lawfully present immigrants might be caught up in the sweep, the probation director, Jeff Breach, deferred responsibility. Verifying legal status, he said, is "within the purview of federal authorities." But immigration attorneys who work in Idaho say that reasoning misses the point. Alycia Moss, an immigration attorney in Coeur d'Alene, noted that ICE agents may still target someone even if they know that person has legal status, if they believe the person's criminal conviction is grounds for deportation. And sometimes, she added, ICE gets that calculation wrong. Nikki Ramirez-Smith, another immigration attorney in the county, called the foreign-born list "an invasion of privacy" and said it amounts to targeting people based on where they were born rather than any evidence of unlawful presence.

This is not the county's first brush with such practices. In 2019, the Canyon County Sheriff's Office instructed staff to notify immigration officials about all foreign-born inmates booked into the jail. Some of the people they reported were U.S. citizens who had already posted bond and were entitled to be released. The county ended up settling at least one lawsuit for $13,000 after a man was illegally detained based on his immigration status despite having posted bail. Currently, the county is facing a lawsuit from the ACLU of Idaho alleging that law enforcement agencies, including those in Canyon County, racially profiled Latino attendees at a horse-racing venue during an October 2025 ICE raid and unlawfully detained people there.

The probation department's director said that ICE has requested similar lists on an annual basis across multiple administrations, stretching back at least to the Obama era. He characterized the arrangement as routine cooperation with federal law enforcement, no different from sharing information with local or state police. But the scale and method matter. When a probation officer provides ICE with a list of 140 names identified by foreign birthplace alone, without independent verification of status, the risk of wrongful detention and deportation becomes substantial. The question now is whether the county will continue the practice or whether the mounting legal and ethical concerns will prompt a change.