Laramie County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Wyoming Highway Patrol collaborated on a three-day operation last week targeting commercial truck drivers on county roads, leading to 40 pending deportations, authorities say.
Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak made the first public statement about the operation in a Friday video post to the agency’s Facebook page, which he said he took “at one of our hardworking points of entry.”
Kozak said his office, ICE and Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) collaborated for three days in Laramie County, specifically targeting commercial drivers who use county roads to avoid the port of entry.
They performed 195 traffic stops.
During those stops, WHP conducted 133 commercial vehicle inspections, placing 44 trucks and 38 drivers out of service.
Forty illegal aliens were in custody Friday awaiting deportation, Kozak added.
One of them, he said, had been convicted of sexual assault and deported twice prior. Another had DUI and larceny convictions and had been deported five times, said the sheriff.
Other Truckers Reported Them
Kozak told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday phone interview that the agencies planned this operation because lawfully-operating truck drivers had been complaining about their undocumented peers side-stepping the ports of entry in the pre-dawn hours.
“It actually surprised me, to be honest with you, how bad of problem this is,” said Kozak. “The ratio of unlicensed drivers was unbelievable to me.”
He said he participated in the operation all three days. Law enforcement officials would set up radar detection operations at about 4 a.m.
There were closer to 205 encounters altogether, since WHP had 10 encounters at an inspection point at the port of entry, said Kozak.
That means roughly one-fifth of the encounters — 40 out of about 205 — prompted deportation proceedings, he confirmed.
The 195 traffic stops all followed observable violations like speeding and lighting defects, Kozak said.
About five or six sheriff’s office personnel worked each day, along with about eight ICE officers and about eight to 10 WHP troopers, the sheriff added.
None of the 40 detainees were taken to the Laramie County Detention Center, he said. ICE had prepared transport vehicles to take them to Aurora, Colorado.
The Numbers
WHP dispatched a more detailed statement Monday morning, saying the operation unfolded from Tuesday to Thursday last week, resulting in more than 50 arrests across the three agencies.
ICE made 12 arrests as “a direct result of commercial carrier inspections” by WHP personnel, the statement says.
WHP, which has federally-certified commercial vehicle inspectors, focused on those inspections through a mobile team.
Of its out-of-service placements, 45 were from brake system violations, 16 were from commercial driver’s license or other licensing issues, 10 were from English language proficiency violations, and two stemmed from drug violations, the statement says.
The 62% rate of violations among the 133 inspections is a “high rate,” the statement says, adding that it “highlights the need for continued enforcement of safety violations and targeted traffic enforcement on bypass routes and high-risk corridors” like smaller, two-lane highways.
“The safety of Wyoming’s motoring public is our top priority,” WHP Col. Tim Cameron said in the statement. “We will continue to engage in aggressive and proactive enforcement aimed at reducing crashes and ensuring that commercial carriers operating in our state are in full compliance with safety standards.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming and ICE did not comment by publication time following separate email requests for comment.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
