MALONE — Three days after meeting with the Franklin County sheriff, legislators passed a resolution stating that Franklin County is not a sanctuary county.

County Manager Donna J. Kissane said that after meeting with the county sheriff earlier in the week, the board agreed to move forward with a resolution Thursday morning.

“It’s the continuous phone calls, quite frankly a lot of phone calls, a lot of Facebook confusion, social media confusion,” Kissane said, “Some departments calling us. I don’t think it is going to change how we are doing business, it’s just to have some thing for the clarity around it.”

Ed Lockwood, R-Malone, the board’s chair, said the resolution is also to provide clarity to the county’s residents on the issue.

“Clearly there are a lot of discussions, right now, across the nation,” Kissane said.

A cable news report last week listed Franklin County as a sanctuary county, according to Andrea M. Dumas, R-Malone.

“This has been a topic of conversation because of a news article last Thursday, Friday, we have always had this correct,” Dumas said.

At a special meeting, Monday, Franklin County Sheriff Jay D. Cook said he went through documents dating back to 2017 and 2014 to get further information on the county’s sanctuary status.

“Nowhere in it, that I have found, did the sheriff’s office ever proclaim to be a sanctuary county sheriff’s office,” Cook said on Monday, “The questions started, I believe, when certain sheriff’s offices got sued for holding federal inmates on an ICE detainer only.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodges detainers on individuals who have been arrested on criminal charges and who the federal law enforcement office has probable cause to believe are removable non-citizens, according to the agency’s website.

According to Cook, the sheriff’s office has complied with ICE in the past, citing his time as sheriff and that of his predecessor, Kevin Mulverhill.

While there is no legal definition for sanctuary policies, the term is applied to jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, such as failing to provide information about immigration status and limiting the length of immigration detainers. States and localities often cooperate with federal law enforcement, particularly in criminal investigations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan association of public officials.

“Sanctuary status is about the detaining of illegal immigrants who have committed a crime and are detained at the county jail,” Kissane said on Thursday, “It’s about notifying ICE of the detainment it doesn’t have anything to do with the border at that point. It’s really about criminal detention.”

Cook said his office continues to cooperate with ICE.

“We cooperate fully, we always have, since 2017 the only change that was made then was they started requesting an extra warrant with a detainer,” he said.

Kissane said the county does notify ICE when individuals who have committed a crime are detained, whereas a sanctuary county may not follow that process.

“That’s been our process,” she said, “That’s where that sanctuary status, if I’m understanding it correctly, is basically saying we don’t need to and maybe we don’t need to, but we do.”

According to Cook, the sheriff’s office deals with federal detainers a couple times a month at the Franklin County Jail.

“We have a couple in our jail right now,” he said, “We absolutely cooperate 100%.”