Bucks County Sheriff's Office Wants to Help ICE Round Up Immigrants, AP-Bucks Co. Beacon Partnership, DNC Vice Chair Interview, Rights of Nature, and More!

“We've seen time and time again that when local law enforcement enters agreements like this with ICE, community trust is obliterated & public safety erodes,” said Immigrant Rights Action's Heidi Roux.

First the Bad News

The Bucks County Beacon scooped all local media today with an unfortunate story: Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran has an application pending to participate in ICE’s 287(g) "task force model", which essentially makes local law enforcement officers de facto ICE agents. The program “allows officers to challenge people on the street about their immigration status — and possibly arrest them … [and] state and local officers are trained and deputized by ICE so they can question, detain and arrest individuals they suspect of violating civil immigration laws while officers are out policing the communities they are sworn to protect.” Sheriff Harran says you don’t have to worry about that - just trust them. He just wants to go after criminals, although the Trump Administration views every undocumented immigrant as a criminal. Democrat Danny Ceisler, who is looking unseat Harran in November, says it’s unnecessary.

Read the piece here: https://buckscountybeacon.com/2025/04/exclusive-sheriff-fred-harran-enlists-bucks-county-in-trumps-nationwide-immigration-crackdown/

(And thanks Melinda Rizzo for helping with the reporting!)

Now Some Good News

Bucks County Beacon Selected for Associated Press Local Newsroom Pilot Program

The Bucks County Beacon is among nearly 50 independent newsrooms across the nation named to participate in a pilot program sponsored by the Associated Press Fund for Journalism (APFJ). Participating newsroom benefits include having access to the AP’s state and national reporting and photos, as well as guidance on localizing significant stories and/or data sets.

This is a huge deal for us. We join the ranks of some great newsrooms across the country, like Arizona Luminaria, Enlace Latino NC, Honolulu Civil Beat, Mississippi Free Press, Spotlight PA, The Haitian Times, and the VT Digger – just to name a few.

It’s amazing that my first article for the Beacon was in February 2022 (Bucks County Needs Progressive Independent Media) and that I’ve now been editing it for just over four years.

Read more here: https://buckscountybeacon.com/2025/04/bucks-county-beacon-selected-for-associated-press-local-newsroom-pilot-program/

And if you can spare a little social change, and believe in progressive independent media, why not become a sustainer or give a one-time donation to the Beacon: https://buckscountybeacon.com/contribute/

And a Couple Podcast Episodes

‘A Fight Fails Without A Dream’: DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta on How The Democratic Party Will Meet This Dangerous Trumpian Moment

* Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s Ben Price, trailblazer in the Rights of Nature Movement, on his new book, Wouldn’t You Say: A Collection of Essays About Environment and Community

* And a blast from the past: I actually wrote a column about Ecuador writing the Rights of Nature into its Constitution and it was cited by the New York Times — back in 2008.