Bucks County, Pennsylvania has decided that it's time for a New Sheriff In Town. The now former Sheriff, Fred Harran, pissed off voters when he decided to partner with ICE.
The new Sheriff is a 33-year old Democrat named Danny Ceisler and he won by a 10% margin, which is shocking for an off-year election. Ceisler is an attorney, a public safety expert AND a former Army Intelligence Officer. Talk about the full package for a Sheriff!
Also, Harran was pretty disliked, it appears. The Bucks County Beacon reports that Harran has been trying to partner with ICE going back to 2018, when he was a mere public safety officer. He reportedly "tried to bring ICE’s 287(g) program to the municipality during Trump’s first term before it became so “popular” with today’s MAGA sheriffs across the country."
He gave up his ICE Gestapo Crusade in 2018, only to resurrect it after Trump's 2024 return to power. But this time he brought it back on county-wide level. He was so excited to partner with the Gestapo - he had a 24/7 hard-on until he was finally able to sign up in March. And sign up he did - for the most disgusting level of partnership - called the “task force model.” It is described as a "force multiplier, empowers trained deputies to act as de facto ICE agents and “allows officers to challenge people on the street about their immigration status.”
Harran was all in on this program, but his community was not. They were worried that ICE would become roaming masked, armed and unidentifiable military would swarm their streets...and that fear is realistic. I mean, look at Chicago and Portland. They have become warzones where unaccountable aggressive, untrained, brutal men and women attack, shoot and mace people who are just living their lives working, shopping or taking their kids to school.
Harran was so bought into the ICE manifesto that he went so far as to go on right-wing podcasts to insult his critics, calling them “lunatics” and “liars.”
Ceisler's platform was simple: violent criminals from other countries should face accountability. But that is different from the ICE partnership Harran proposed. And it paid off, he won.
To be clear, Bucks County is a swing county in a swing state. Trump won it by a mere 274 votes in 2024 (out of 400,000 cast). The high turnout for this election went deeper than the Sheriff. They also flipped the district attorney election, the controller’s office, and won more seats on local school boards, solidifying their power to stop bans on books and rainbow flags.
FAFO, Gestapo Sheriff. Enjoy retirement.
