Report: O.C. Sheriff and some police agencies work too closely with immigration authorities

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department and some local police agencies continue to turn over unauthorized immigrants to federal immigration agents – including some whose crimes are minor — despite state laws aimed at limiting that practice, according to a new report released Monday by the UC Irvine Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic and two immigrant rights organizations.

The 37-page report stops short of accusing any local agency of systemically breaking state law. But it does say the Sheriff’s Department is seeking to profit from the detentions, lacks transparency, and goes out of its way to cooperate with ICE.

“These detentions appear to be subsidized by county taxpayers and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department is profiting off their suffering,” said Annie Lai, co-director of the UCI Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic. “They’re trying to get around the law in every way they can.

“And the Board of Supervisors has refused to provide the public with information about ICE access,” Lai added.  “They’re abdicating their responsibility.”

Lai was referring to a state-mandated public forum held Dec. 4 to review cooperation between the Sheriff’s Department and ICE.  The meeting before the Board of Supervisors ended before it even began, when Board Chairman Andrew Do closed the forum after county counsel said they could legally do so.

An agency spokeswoman said the Sheriff’s Department has complied with state laws, including the so-called sanctuary state law known as the California Values Act. But the sanctuary law, according to spokeswoman Carrie Braun, “has made Orange County less safe.”

Last year, the Sheriff’s released 1,070 immigrant inmates who could be not held because of state laws, Braun wrote in an email. Of those, she said, 159 have “re-offended, committing crimes such as child molestation and attempted murder.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department and some local agencies are contacting ICE about people who had a previous record and are back in detention for minor offenses like driving without a license, petty theft, loitering or simple misdemeanor drug possession, according to the report, also authored by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, based in San Francisco, and Resilience Orange County, a youth-led group.

In one case, Laguna Beach resident Edgar Torres, 28, said he was transferred to an ICE facility by that city’s police officers after they arrested him last summer while driving inebriated.

“I made a terrible mistake,” Torres said of driving after drinking.

Torres took no issue with his arrest, until he was transferred to an ICE facility. Torres, a student at Orange Coast College who said he has a temporary legal status known as DACA and no prior record, was released from ICE custody the same day. Still, he believes the experience was “a violation of my rights.”

An attorney representing Laguna Beach declined to comment, saying Torres filed a claim against the city, often a precursor to a lawsuit.

The report, which includes 2016 and 2017 arrests by ICE’s Los Angeles field office — which covers Orange County — noted that arrests dipped only slightly from 2016 to 2017, when the sanctuary law took effect. Meanwhile, the report noted, three quarters of ICE’s 2017 arrests in the region were of people transferred from local agencies, mostly from the Sheriff’s Department and local police departments.

That data raised questions about how the transfers are happening, Lai said.

Also, with local law enforcement no longer allowed to hold a detainee for transfer to ICE, “local officials are finding ways to turn residents over to ICE outside” the detainer process, according to the report.

Last March, then-Sheriff Sandra Hutchens announced that she would make public the release dates of all inmates, making it easier for ICE to pick up detainees once they had completed their sentences.

Last year, several Orange County cities, and the county, made official statements condemning the state’s so-called sanctuary laws. And the report argues that the county has a history of hostility toward undocumented immigration.

But, Lai said, the region’s demographics and politics are changing. “Orange County is at a turning point,” Lai said. “ A new sheriff is coming into office, demographics are changing rapidly and it’s a question of whether Orange County officials are going to hold on to the policies and the politics of the past or embrace a more immigrant inclusive future.”