Bucks County Sheriff demands apology from commissioner

✅ Commissioner Bob Harvie made the comments at the end of Wednesday's meeting

✅ Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran believes the comments were aimed at him

✅ Harran agreed to a partnership with ICE

Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran is demanding an apology from county commissioner Bob Harvie over his comments at the end of Wednesday's meeting he believes were directed at him.

At the center of the controversy is an agreement between the sheriff's office and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to join the 287(g) program. It that will provides specialized training for deputies assigned to a task force to better identify unauthorized immigrants.

Critics of the plan tell TAP into Doylestown they believe the program will allow deputies to ask anyone about their immigration status

During Wednesday's commissioner meeting Harvie, a former history teacher and self described "history nerd" drew parallels between 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the dwindling number of veterans still alive.  He did not mention the agreement by name.

The Democrat said events in Italy in the 1920s and Germany in the 1930s are "not foo far away from being in the same ballpark" from the current political climate.

"The few remaining veterans of that war, I think, is one of the things that concerns me most about where we are as a nation today because when we lose those people we lose those memories we lose the history we lose that touch of what led to the beginning of that war," Harvie said from the dais.

Sheriff: Comment was 'inexcusable' and 'unconscionable'

Harran, who is the only Jewish county sheriff in Pennsylvania, took offense at the comments describing them in a statement as "inexcusable" and "unconscionable in a time of deep political divisions, anti-law enforcement sentiment, and rampant antisemitism in our nation and our world"

The Republican said members of his mother's family were murdered by Nazis and his father was a doctor in Patton's Third Army "who liberated concentration camps and cared for fellow Jews dehumanized and destroyed by the cruelty of an evil and authoritarian regime."

"Commissioner Harvie’s remarks (were) both personally offensive and derogatory to the Jewish community – both here in Bucks County and around the nation. Just as bad, his twisted version of history equates my deputies’ efforts to uphold the rule of law and keep our communities safe from known criminals to Nazi-era atrocities," Harran said in a statement. "His statements simultaneously demean law enforcement officers and minimize the very real, and very personal, horrors of the period he fancies himself an expert on."

It does not appear that an apology is coming soon from Harvie who is running in the 1st congressional district primary. He described Harran's claim as "dishonest, wholly offensive and arguably libelous" in a statement on the county website.

"If the Sheriff sees himself portrayed on the wrong side of those comments, then perhaps that says more about him and his intentions than it does about Commissioner Harvie," the statement read. "We do not twist their pain to score political points in an election year. For doing just that, the Sheriff’s statement is as insulting as it is absurd."

Ceisler: Sheriff exploiting shared religion

Democratic Sheriff's candidate Danny Ceisler was critical of Harran's comments and said it was Harran who needs to apologize for "shamlessly exploitng our shared religion."

"Commissioner Harvie did not call him a Nazi nor did he invoke the Holocaust in any way. Instead, he called out tactics being employed around our nation that are unmistakealby reminiscent of those use in Germany before the Holocaust: the denial of process, disregard for the rule of law and the calculated spread of misinformation," Ceisler wrote in a statement.

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