TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas – Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who oversees the sheriff’s department in Austin, Texas, is putting illegal aliens above her own deputies by refusing to comply with federal law and rejecting bullet proof rifle-resistant vests her office would receive from the federal government, reported The Hayride.

According to the report, Texas received $23 million in federal grant money that would allow its law enforcement departments to purchase 33,000 rifle-resistant vests. More than 400 law enforcement agencies can apply for them. But here is the catch: In order to do so the agencies need to comply with federal law. Moreover, each department head must sign a letter stating that its officers will cooperate with detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Gov. Greg Abbott added this stipulation knowing that not all of Texas sheriffs comply with ICE, including one of his Democratic challengers and sanctuary sheriff from Dallas, Lupe Valdez.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Sally Hernandez is no different, and it is having a negative impact on deputies. She maintains the same illegal sanctuary city policy as Valdez for Austin, which is why she isn’t going to sign the letter and by doing so forfeits life-saving vests for her officers. Travis County never submitted its application for $240,000 in grant money to purchase roughly 200 rifle-resistant vests last year, KXAN news reported.

Retired police lieutenant Randy Sutton remarked that Hernandez’s decision is “sickening,” “unconscionable,” adding that all she has to do is “… simply do her job, which is to recognize detainers on prisoners.”

At issue is the length of time an illegal immigrant is detained in a county jail. Once an illegal has been arrested on criminal charges, ICE submits a request to the local law enforcement department to detain them longer until ICE picks them up to process them for deportation.

KXAN news reported that Hernandez’s reason for refusing to comply with federal law is that she is waiting for a court to determine whether or not she must cooperate with ICE detainers.

In other words, she is knowingly not doing her job, and not complying with the law, until a judge forces her to do so. If this is the case, why hasn’t she been fired? Isn’t insubordination and not following a direct order from the governor cause for her to lose her job?

Update:

After the article published, LET received the following details from PIO Kristen Dark of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office:

Your publication posted a story about Sheriff Sally Hernandez today, indicating she declined rifle resistant armor for her deputies. In reality, it was Travis County that decided not to apply for the grant and the Travis County Sheriff’s Office was able to purchase the vests without need of the grant. This all took place last year.

Here are links to how the situation was resolved.

https://www.kxan.com/…/travis-county…/1084262977

https://www.tcsheriff.org/…/506-tcso-to-fund-body-armor