Erie County Executive Brenton Davis explained that we currently have three federal holds in the Erie County Prison.

The definition of a federal hold refers to a legal status where someone is being held in custody by local authorities at the request of federal law enforcement due to a pending federal charge or warrant.

A detainee is a broader term for anyone held in custody, including someone held on a federal hold, before trial or pending legal proceedings.

"There is absolutely no evidence of any U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials operating any kind of widescale operations here.

We have a contract with the federal government, which we renewed in May before any of these executive orders.

This is something that we historically have had for a decade plus or more, we offset the cost of our county prison with federal holds, that could be Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, or Immigration and Customs.

Right now, we have three federal holds, which could be not necessarily individuals from this area, the next closest one is in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, which is another county that is contracted with the federal government.

This is something that is customary and how we offset the cost of overtime with our corrections officers, offset some of the costs of running the prison, so it is a benefit to the taxpayers of Erie County for all these federal inmates that we hold.

If an individual needs to come for anything in federal court, we hold those and we are paid by the federal government to holds those individuals.

The three cases that we have now are federal holds and the specific guidelines behind that are real simple, there are two pieces of paperwork they are both signed by a federal judge, so you have a warrant that a federal judge has already signed and you are being held to be processed to wherever they are assigned to go, whether that be a federal trial or deportation, and that is not something that we in Erie County make a distinction on.

We are, in fact, obligated under this contract to hold them for whatever said length of time in accordance with this contract.

Some people may think that we can just let people of out of jail, that is never the case, whether it is county,  state or federal court, we do not make that distinction, we need a judge's order that either holds a person or releases them and that is not the case with the three individuals that we have that are currently ICE holds," Davis said.