3/3/2025
“Great Falls This Week” is reported and written by Matt Hudson. Send your news and tips to [email protected].
Authorities report ‘good relationship’ with ICE
Cascade County law enforcement leaders are happy with their interactions with federal immigration agencies, which isn’t often.
“ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has always been in a good relationship with local law enforcement,” Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter told Montana Free Press recently. “Particularly here, part of it is because we don’t deal with it that much.”
Under the Trump administration’s more aggressive moves to arrest and deport undocumented people, local and state law enforcement have forged new partnerships with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE.
On Feb. 20, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced an immigration enforcement agreement with the federal government that gives highway patrol troopers more authority to enforce immigration laws. And a headline-grabbing ICE operation in early February took place in Gallatin County, which is under a similar agreement.
The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office and Great Falls Police Department don’t directly enforce federal immigration laws. Local officers and deputies will notify federal immigration authorities if they suspect immigration enforcement is necessary.
“We cannot arrest people on an ICE warrant alone,” Slaughter said. “I think that’s one of the key things.”
Earlier this year, Slaughter voiced support for House Bill 439, which would have required federal officials to notify local sheriffs before making any arrest. That bill failed to pass a House vote. Still, Slaughter and GFPD Chief Jeff Newton said that their people work well with local ICE agents.
“It’s not something we deal with on a regular basis,” Newton said.
The recent arrest of an alleged Mexican citizen shows the interagency relationship in practice. According to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, a GFPD detective called an ICE agent to the scene of suspected trespassing on Feb. 13. A man named Duran Valdivias wasn’t the suspected trespasser but spoke with law enforcement at the scene. The ICE agent checked Valdivias’ immigration status and found that he was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol five times in 2012 and ordered to stay out of the country, according to court documents.
Two ICE agents later arrested Valdivias, who was working for a local property manager.
The local immigration enforcement agreements are part of a program known as 287(g) that President Donald Trump reinforced in a recent executive order. The agreements can vary, but they can give local law enforcement the ability to “perform the functions of immigration officers,” according to the order.
Two counties participate in 287(g): Gallatin and Flathead. One Montana county is listed as “pending,” and that’s Cascade.
For now, local law enforcement officials say they’re already able to assist federal immigration agencies well given the frequency of cases they encounter.
Photo Op
The rapid snow melt exposed some saturated soils, and Stuart Yatsko shared this photo of the “first false spring green.” Weather forecasts call for a wintry mix of precipitation this week.
Calling all photographers: Submit a photo for Great Falls This Week to [email protected].
Public Notice
Great Falls city commissioners will discuss the latest tax benefit request from Calumet, which would reduce the city’s tax proceeds by up to $226,000 annually for five years. That is part of a work session set for Tuesday at 5:30 at the Civic Center. Cascade County commissioners will vote to approve or disapprove the tax abatement, and the city doesn’t have a vote on the matter. County officials requested input from the city before voting.
Tuesday’s 7 p.m. regular city commission meeting will include a public hearing on a resolution to raise public golf course fees. A schedule of the proposed fee increases can be found on the meeting agenda.
3 Questions For
Great Falls-based author Jamie Ford once said in an interview that he’s more productive in cold weather. This past month might have given him the shut-in weather he needed, but he was traveling when Montana Free Press reached him for this Q and A in early February.
Ford is the author of novels including “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” and “The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.” Below, Ford reflects on his current work, the moment in American culture and an inspirational person in his life.
MTFP: What are you working on these days?
Ford: Working on a multi-cultural murder mystery set in Seattle in 1958 and 2032. It’s historical and speculative and another genre-mashup. I’ve clearly bitten off more than I can chew, so think good thoughts as I try to bring this thing in for a landing without killing all my characters.
World War II-era Japanese internment features in the plot of your book, “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.” You posted on Bluesky that you planned to visit the Minidoka National Historic Site, the former site of a Japanese internment camp in Idaho. How are you reflecting on that troubled point in American history while living through this current national historical moment?
I do think most of us, politically, are closer than we are farther apart. But our social media ecosystems are toxic dumping grounds for the most angrily engaged, easily misled and intellectually malnourished among us. Their extreme voices get attention and then attention-driven algorithms magnify them. And the sad thing is, half the time it’s people responding to fake accounts and bots sponsored by foreign governments to divide us.
As far as Minidoka, since they’re part of the National Parks Service, they’re struggling with budget and staffing cuts, which is disappointing. If Trump had run on austerity, and the ask was for all Americans to shoulder the burden of reducing our national debt equally, that would be one thing. But they’re raising the debt ceiling, so it’s clearly not about the national debt. These cuts are so they can sustain the trillions in tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. And it’s the jubilant way they’re going about it — just dancing with glee that everyday working-class Americans are losing their jobs –– and then calling them parasites. I don’t see this ending well for anyone.
Who inspires you right now and why?
Right now, it’s probably Mysten Price, the director of Toby’s House Crisis Nursery. So many of us (me included) spend so much time talking about how bad things are, while someone like Mysten spends her time making things better. A young couple with little support went into labor on Christmas Day, and the hospital called Toby’s House. Within the hour Mysten was at the hospital with a car seat, donated clothing, diapers and formula, all these things this young couple needed. There are people in our community who are builders, while others are wreckers. Mysten is a builder.
Might Be Fun
The Great Falls Public Library will hold two lectures scheduled around International Women’s Day (March 8). On March 6 at 6 p.m., Mary Jane Bradbury will give a presentation titled, “And Yet They Persisted: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment and Equality in America.” Bradbury is an artist-in-residence for the C.M. Russell Museum and the Montana Historical Society in Helena. The second presentation is from Leigh Larson about the Fort Shaw Indian School women’s basketball team, which won a world championship in 1904. Leigh is a storyteller and scholar. This event is March 11 at 6:30 p.m.
Western Art Week is just more than two weeks away. Visit Great Falls Montana has a complete calendar of events starting March 19.