In a year that saw masked federal immigration raids sweep through Southern California, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department continued to transfer inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a high rate.
Sheriff Don Barnes did not speak on the transfers during an annual forum Tuesday at the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting as required by state law.
But statistics provided to supervisors by Barnes show the department screened inmates 824 times before releasing them from Orange County Jail at ICE’s request last year.
From those screenings, ICE took 271 inmates into custody out of the 323 referrals allowed under California’s “sanctuary state” law.
The transfers represent an uptick from the 220 total reported at last year’s forum and a surge from the record low 17 reported in 2023.
“We know that there has been documented unconstitutional practices and lawlessness by ICE and other enforcement agencies,” said Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento. “If there ever was a year for us to step back and say, ‘Do these transfers make our community safer?’ this was it.”
Barnes’ stats indicate that state law prohibited OCSD from notifying ICE of about 501 inmate screenings.
Roughly 11% of those not transferred committed new criminal offenses after being released from jail. Barnes highlighted offenses ranging from driving under the influence to assault with a deadly weapon, though it was unclear how representative those re-offenses were.
Sarmiento continued to question the voluntary transfers, noting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department saved $1.4 million in staff time by electing not to collaborate with ICE in such a manner.
“Why are other counties not seeing a spike in crime once they decide not to transfer folks?” he asked. “I know that people who commit crime should be in custody and should be detained, but once that detention is over, it becomes a choice. It’s not mandated for us to transfer, and many counties have chosen not to.”
Pro-immigrant activists also criticized OCSD’s continued collaboration during the forum.
“A vast majority of the individuals that OCSD transferred to ICE in the past year were transferred voluntarily, rather than in response to judicial warrants,” said Logan Smith, a policy analyst with the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice.
“Contact with ICE has always been risky for community members, but over the last year, ICE as an agency has become even more opaque and conditions in its facilities and the private prisons it contracts with are even more brutal than ever.”
Ahead of the forum, the Harbor Institute released a report based on transfer statistics it had culled from public record requests.
The nonprofit charted 239 total inmate transfers based on ICE detainers. In an updated brief, OCSD transferred 32 more people in response to judicial warrants.
Mexican immigrants remained the most impacted demographic, followed by Vietnamese.
While Vietnamese residents comprise about 16% of Orange County’s immigrant and refugee population, they are disproportionately impacted by ICE transfers, the report stated. Vietnamese were the least shielded from transfers by California’s “sanctuary state” law, with 97% not having any such protection.
The Harbor Institute called on OCSD to stop ICE transfers, as other county sheriff’s departments have done. The nonprofit also criticized the lack of easy access to ICE transfer data and called for the state-required annual forums to be held at a more accessible time for members the public, to make them into “more robust tools of transparency.”
On Thursday morning, three supervisors had no questions or comments about ICE transfer statistics that were received and filed but not verbally presented.
Board Chair Doug Chaffee limited his comments to a criticism of federal immigration raids before closing the forum.
“I am dismayed by some of the lawlessness that I see immigration officers use,” he said. “We try to be a nation of laws, but then law enforcement itself doesn’t obey the laws. That’s very troubling.”