Orange County residents are about to get their annual peek at how much the county sheriff’s department works with federal immigration authorities on Tuesday morning. 

According to their newest reports, the sheriff’s department ramped up how many inmates they turned over to immigration – going from 17 in 2022 to 221 last year. 

State law prohibits the sheriff’s department from directly transferring prisoners to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, more commonly known as ICE. 

But that doesn’t stop the department from notifying federal authorities when they release someone from custody so they can be immediately picked up by immigration in front of the jail – a practice used by police departments across the state, according to state disclosures. 

Of the 302 inmates the OC Sheriff’s Department notified ICE about last year, 221 were picked up by federal immigration authorities according to Carrie Braun, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department. 

There were also another 245 inmates that were flagged by ICE that the sheriff’s department never notified them about last year. 

Over the past five years, the Orange County Sheriffs turned over the second-highest number of inmates to ICE of any law enforcement agency in the state, according to data from the state Department of Justice. 

The sheriff’s reporting on the data has also been spotty – in the first draft of their staff report this year, they claimed they notified ICE about just 17 prisoners in 2022. 

After being asked about the low number by Voice of OC, the chart was updated to state the sheriff’s department notified immigration officials of 155 inmates in 2022, with Braun saying 17 was the number of inmates who actually got picked up by ICE. 

When asked why the number of inmates picked up increased, Braun said she wasn’t sure. 

“The Sheriff has been advocating for ICE to increase the number of eligible individuals that they pick up, but the reason for the increase is a question you need to direct to ICE,” Braun said. 

Requests for comment to ICE went unreturned.

Despite county supervisors getting the chance to review the issue once a year, they usually stay silent as dozens of public commenters question why Orange County works so much with ICE and why their elected representatives don’t ask more questions about it. 

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento broke that streak of silence last year, asking for a new forum to be set up that would allow for more discussion on the county’s handling of immigration. 

“You know, the more we try to not discuss these issues, sometimes it looks like we’re trying to hide something,” Sarmiento said last year. “I don’t think it’s a good thing for this county to be an outlier county.” 

Despite Sarmiento’s questions, no changes were made to this year’s presentation. 

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.