Commissioner: Gallatin County “As Safe As It’s Ever Been”

We called out the Gallatin County Commissioners for standing in the way of ICE, and for failing to protect the community from the criminal illegal aliens filling up Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley. But we also offered them the opportunity to respond.

On Monday morning, Gallatin County Commissioner Zach Brown joined us on Montana Talks with Aaron Flint.

Here's what he had to say about why the Gallatin County Commissioners are not supporting an agreement between the Gallatin County Sheriff and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

Commissioner Brown: "Gallatin County voters asked me to follow the law, including immigration laws and civil rights laws. And there's a lot of folks out there that have concerns that ICE is violating folks civil rights across the country right now, so there's a lack of trust, and we're in a hyper polarized moment."

 

This was my response along with more of the back and forth:

Aaron Flint: "So when I think about that, though, I think about the way that local small businesses in Bozeman and Gallatin County were treated during COVID 19 and, you know, basically you had the government cracking down on local businesses- now, the big box stores got a pass- Local business owners got treated horribly by the city and by the county, but then transients and illegal aliens get to flood the city, and now all of a sudden you're worried about about their rights, when the rights of local business owners got kicked to the curb in COVID 19 era."

Commissioner Brown: "Listen, since I've been in the Commission, we have Gallatin County Commission has invested record amounts of resources into public safety. We built a new Justice facility. We've made record investments in salaries for our sheriff's deputies. We've expanded the scope of the county attorney's office in terms of the number of bodies they have in their office to prosecute crimes. So Gallatin County is as safe as it has ever been, or safer over the last five years since I've been in office, and we will continue to protect public safety in Gallatin County and invest dollars efficiently for the intended purpose of those tax dollars. So that means working with ICE sometimes, we will continue to work with ICE on a case by case basis and rely on the facts."

A caller named Jim in Belgrade made a great point towards the end of the interview, to which the commissioner agreed. Check it out below.

The full audio can be found in the 2nd half of the below podcast.