WENATCHEE — Chelan County officials say they’ve been “inundated” by angry calls after the county jail landed on a federal “non-cooperative jurisdictions” list for releasing a man possibly in the country illegally before immigration officials could pick him up.

Commissioners issued a statement Thursday saying they do cooperate with the feds.

“Chelan County has in the past and continues to honor (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) requests to notify their office in advance of the release of individuals deemed of interest to ICE,” says the statement by county commissioners Kevin Overbay, Keith Goehner and Doug England.

The statement continues: “What Chelan County cannot and will not do is to illegally hold prisoners past their scheduled release date. To do so has been determined by federal courts to be illegal. Chelan County expects to continue this practice of cooperation with ICE in a manner that fully complies with federal law.”

The Wenatchee World reported Monday that the Chelan County Regional Justice Center is one of 47 state and local jails branded “non-cooperative jurisdictions” on a new weekly list ordered by President Donald Trump.

The listed jurisdictions don’t hold immigrants already jailed for local crimes beyond their local court-ordered release dates.

The Chelan County jail appears on the Jan. 28 to Feb. 3 list for releasing a Mexican man imprisoned on a local charge of domestic violence, despite an ICE request to detain the man for possibly being in the country illegally.

Since the report, commissioners and law-enforcement officials have been “inundated” with angry calls, England said Thursday.

Most of the callers, he said, mistakenly believed the county was operating as a “sanctuary” by intentionally not cooperating with the federal effort to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. That’s not true, he and Jail Director Curt Lutz said.

The Chelan County jail ceased holding inmates on “immigration detainer” requests in 2014.

That was the year federal judges in multiple cases ruled that holding an inmate solely on an ICE detainer violates federal law, because it amounts to a warrantless arrest — a violation of federal law.

County law enforcement has never declined to pick up and detain people wanted by federal arrest warrant — an order signed by a federal judge, Lutz says.

But ICE detainers are different. ICE officials routinely review the jail’s roster of inmates, Lutz said. When they’re interested in any of them, they submit an ICE detainer to jail authorities.

The detainer is signed by an ICE field officer. It’s a request to be notified of the prisoner’s release date, so ICE can be there to take the prisoner into federal custody.

Lutz and England said the jail always complies with these requests. Officials notify ICE of the release date and point the prisoner out to ICE officials present at the time of the prisoner’s release.

Jail authorities don’t always receive much prior notice from the courts about when a prisoner will be released, Lutz said, but they notify ICE as quickly as they can.

Sometimes, despite the heads-up, ICE officials aren’t present at the time of the prisoner’s release — even though they were notified, as requested. That was true in the single case that landed the Chelan County jail on Trump’s non-cooperative jurisdiction list.

When the man suspected of domestic violence was released from the jail here, ICE officials weren’t present to take him into custody, England said.

The 2014 federal court rulings prevent local jail officials from simply hanging on to the prisoner beyond the court-mandated release date, until ICE officials show up, Lutz said.

“We’ll hold a prisoner for as long as the court tells us to,” Lutz said. “The relationship we have with the local ICE office is important. We try to work with them the best we can. We do what we can legally to cooperate.”

England agreed. “We cooperate with them fully, we just need to cooperate with them legally,” he said. “We won’t change from what we’re doing. We’re advised that to be legal, that’s the way we have to do it.”

Chelan County hasn’t tracked the number of prisoners ICE has taken custody of upon release, England said, but jail officials plan to begin.