MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. -- The ongoing feud between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officials and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff is heating up again.

Now, ICE is criticizing Sheriff Garry McFadden for not cooperating with them and McFadden is reiterating that he will not honor their detainer requests.

We’ve seen this back and forth continue to play out. ICE officials announced this week, they arrested 32 undocumented immigrants from Mecklenburg County with a criminal history.

The main focus of their announcement though, was criticizing McFadden for not honoring ICE detainers.

This is how they work: if an undocumented immigrant is arrested for committing a crime in any community in the U.S., a detainer alerts local police about that person's legal status. It also asks local law enforcement to keep the person custody until ice can take over.

Tim Robbins with ICE Enforcement Removal operations says out of the 70 people they targeted in their most recent operation, 27 of them had detainers that had not been honored in Mecklenburg County.

“Those criminal aliens remain free in the community to commit more crimes all because the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office chose to knowingly and willingly release a criminal instead of calling ICE,” said Robbins.

“I would have hoped and still wish that we sit down as adults and talk about this broken immigration system, instead of having posters and having press conferences and taking us out of the very work of working in the community to be safe,” said McFadden.

The sheriff says a detainer is a request, not a federal warrant signed by a judge. McFadden also went onto say when someone is arrested they do reach out to ICE officials, to tell them about a person who is possibly an undocumented immigrant.