A state law that takes effect Sunday will require the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and other agencies to do more for illegal immigrants sought by federal immigration authorities, but sheriff’s officials said Friday that won’t change the county’s policy of working with the feds.
Assembly Bill 2792, the “Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds” Act, was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in September.
The law, authored by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, mandates that local law enforcement agencies follow a strict protocol whenever they are in contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials regarding a foreign national housed in a county correctional facility.
AB 2792 is a corollary to AB 4, signed into law by the governor in 2013, establishing criteria for when a local law enforcement agency can honor an ICE “hold” or detainer.
AB 4 specifically bars law enforcement officials from holding an undocumented immigrant offender beyond his or her court-ordered detention period — even when federal agents have requested it — unless that person is a wanted felon or has committed any one of a number of violent crimes within the preceding five years.
Bonta’s bill largely takes aim at the federal “Priority Enforcement Program,” the Obama administration’s replacement for the “Secure Communities Program,” under which ICE detainers were generally honored by local jails.
PEP emphasizes communication between local and federal authorities in immigration matters.
Under PEP, a local law enforcement agency has the option of notifying the nearest ICE office whenever a known illegal immigrant offender is about to be released from jail.
AB 2792 requires that the following conditions be met before and during the notification process:
- Any communication from ICE regarding the immigration status of an inmate must be shared with that inmate.
- Whenever a law enforcement agency notifies ICE of a pending release, the agency shall “promptly provide the same notification in writing to the individual and his or her attorney.”
- Local law enforcement agencies may only turn over to ICE detainee records that are accessible under the California Public Records Act and may redact “personal identifying information … prior to public disclosure” of the records.
- And a local agency must submit a form to the foreign national, in that person’s native language, explaining that he or she “may decline to be interviewed” by a federal immigration official and must sign the form expressing consent.
To what extent the new regulations will increase the workload of county correctional deputies was not immediately known. But Assistant Sheriff Jerry Gutierrez said the sheriff’s department “will continue to notify ICE of pending releases that ICE specifically requests.”
In a conversation with City News Service earlier this year, Gutierrez said court records and other databases will sometimes reveal a person’s immigration status, but the sheriff’s department does not try to “investigate” immigration-related issues. ICE can also become aware of an immigrant offender’s presence when his or her fingerprints are scanned at a correctional facility.
Gutierrez said, typically, jail deputies will contact the San Bernardino ICE office by phone “a couple of hours” before an offender is set to be freed. However, jail personnel will not hold the person until federal agents arrive.
“They all leave through the jail process. There’s no handing off of individuals,” the assistant sheriff told CNS.
He said the department does not maintain a log of PEP activity. ICE does not have specific figures either. However, agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice told CNS that in the first eight months of the 2015-16 fiscal year, Riverside County’s notification calls to ICE “accounted for fewer than 10 percent” of all the calls in jurisdictions served by the agency’s Pacific Enforcement Response Center.
— City News Service