Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes slams a state asylum law that prohibits local law enforcement from contacting immigration officials when an undocumented immigration is held in county jails, but he said he would not direct his representatives to enforce immigration laws.
“We don’t want to enforce immigration laws – we never will,” Barnes said at a board meeting on Tuesday. “But we must have the ability to communicate and share threats and remove criminals who prey on our community within the immigrant communities where they live.”
At the same meeting, Barnes called for the repeal of SB 54, a law approved by voters in 2017, in part as a response to the first Trump administration’s policies that boost deportation and immigration detention.
Now Trump calls for mass deportation in his second term, including targeting some visa holders and Immigration without a criminal historya new review of state laws has been conducted as local law enforcement agencies try to determine how they will work with federal immigration authorities.
Trump’s latest deportation and California’s contempt put local law enforcement officers in a precarious position.
According to SB 54, local law enforcement officers are prohibited from using money or resources for federal immigration enforcement. However, the law allows local law enforcement officers to screen prisoners in U.S. immigration and customs law enforcement officers to require prisoners to be convicted of certain violent felony and misdemeanors, such as assault, assault, assault, assault, assault, assault or sexual abuse of a child or other crimes.
If the inmate has not been convicted, the law prohibits local law enforcement from notifying ICE when he will be released from custody.
Last year, in Orange County, ICE officials asked county jail officials to screen 633 inmates to be detained in the county jail. Of these prisoners, 226 are called illegal in the country. Federal agencies detained 186 prisoners, according to state regulations.
Some immigration rights advocates spoke at a meeting Tuesday and criticized supervisors and sheriffs for continuing immigration screening in prisons and urged county officials to stop working with federal immigration officials.
Although Representatives and local law enforcement are prohibited from frequently asking about immigration status when talking to suspects or witnesses, advocates say local law enforcement and immigration officials can undermine public trust and prevent people from reaching out with police.
“This undermines public safety and undermines our local economy,” said Carlos Perea, executive director of the Institute for Immigration and Economic Justice.
Barnes stressed that the representative of the state’s third largest county focuses on enforcing state and local laws rather than immigration laws. But he also made it clear that he supports greater cooperation by immigration officials in undocumented immigration detained in county jails, although he said his agency will continue to comply with state laws.
Barnes criticized the alleged asylum law during his contact with supervisors Tuesday and provided examples of immigrants arrested in Orange County and were released and re-arrested for other crimes, including kidnapping, narcotics sales and child abuse.
“Those who have not been taken over by ICE continue to harm our communities and consume law enforcement resources,” he said.
Of the 633 inmates requesting screenings in Orange County, 407 did not meet the state’s criteria for notifying federal officials, Barnes said.
However, it will be at the discretion of law enforcement to notify federal officials of those who meet the criteria.
This choice has also sparked confrontation among local officials who disagree how much, if any, should involve immigration enforcement.
February, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco Said his representative will not participate in immigration enforcement.
The statement, in a video Bianco said part of the post on social media was to address rumors that Riverside representatives were involved in immigration attacks.
Bianco, an outspoken supporter of President Trump, criticized California’s asylum laws.
But Bianco told Fox 11 Los Angeles that he would “work around SB 54 with ice.”
San Diego County Supervisor adopted a policy in December that would prevent prison staff from working with federal officials regardless of the inmate’s previous convictions.
But San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez, who oversees the jail, overturned the supervisory board and said she would not comply with county policies.
Martinez argued that as an elected official and overseeing the prison, she could only develop policies for the sheriff’s department and vowed to continue notifying the ICE when someone who was not authorized to be released in the country was released.
In Orange County, the supervisor appears to be primarily in support of the sheriff’s policy.
Superintendent Don Wagner noted that the 226 prisoners known as ICE constituted a small fraction of more than 48,000 bookings in the prison last year.
“The sheriff will be respected, not condemned for using the power he outlined today,” Wagner said.
