(Editor's note: This is just one part of a series of stories about local candidates in the upcoming June 2 primary, municipal and school board election. Find more coverage here.)
Simplified: Sioux Falls Simplified readers submitted several questions about public safety and the Sioux Falls Police Department ahead of the June 2 election. One of the topics that came up was questions about how the city's new leadership would approach collaboration between federal immigration officers and local police.
Here's what we asked all of the Southeast District City Council candidates:
Do you support collaboration between the Sioux Falls Police Department and federal immigration officials, i.e. ICE?
Here's what candidates had to say (in alphabetical order):
Michael Crane
"It depends, I think. I know that there are ICE agents or people doing immigration in town. They work with the police department now, and it seems to be relatively seamless. After witnessing what we've seen in Minneapolis and places like that, I would be cautious in terms of how I would approach it."
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Brady Kerkman
"Absolutely," Kerkman said. "I think the situation that occurred in Minnesota was a situation that could have really been prevented if people would have, I'm trying to think of the right word here, but put their own self opinions aside and work across the table. ... We don't always have to agree. And that's okay. Disagreement is good. It makes us kind of think outside the box.
"So absolutely, I would work collaboratively to do two things. One, make sure that we're addressing the most significant issues out there. Two, we're not targeting individuals that don't need to be targeted as well. But yes, collaboration is always going to be important."
Sara Pankonin
"I would probably think that you would start out with, like, do we have a local problem? You know, I've been going door to door, and I found a few people that weren't registered to vote. And they seem like very hardworking, happy people that I wasn't concerned meeting them.
"At the same time, I'm glad that I'm a citizen, and maybe there's a few people that are still on that journey. I've watched some people become citizens, and ... the people that I know that became citizens were really, really happy to become citizens."
See all Simplified election coverage here:
