There’s been an open question on what immigration enforcement in California will look like moving forward since President Donald Trump began his second term.
It was one of the biggest questions at the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday meeting, where they held a long discussion about how many people the sheriff’s department turned over to federal immigration officials last year.
At the same time, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes publicly told Supervisors he’s going to continue following state sanctuary law, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from coordinating with federal immigration officials on a host of enforcement efforts.
California sanctuary law also allowed Barnes to transfer 221 people to ICE custody last year, according to state-mandated disclosures under the TRUTH Act.
It comes as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials issue detainers on people they suspect of being in the country illegally – which basically are requests to local law enforcement officials to hold someone before releasing them from jail so ICE agents can pick them up.
Because California is a sanctuary state, law enforcement agencies like the Orange County Sheriff’s Department are only allowed to honor ICE detainer requests if that person has been convicted of violent or serious felonies like rape, murder, kidnapping, robbery and a host of other crimes.
Barnes said he will continue following that law.
“OCSD does not engage in immigration enforcement. My deputies are focused on criminal violations of state and local law,” Barnes said on Tuesday. “We have not and will not participate in any local actions of enforcement by federal authorities enforcing immigration law.”
Under the law, police and sheriffs aren’t allowed to notify ICE when someone’s in custody. It also bars law enforcement officials from asking questions or arresting people based on immigration status.
“My policy will not change,” Barnes told OC Supervisors.
Under the state’s sanctuary law, the department has turned people over to ICE just over 2,500 times since 2017, according to county records.
It’s unclear if any of those were the same person being turned over twice, with the sheriffs’ staff reports not delineating between repeat offenders.
Sheriff officials reported they received nearly 4,000 ICE detainer requests on people in that time frame, but they were not turned over to immigration under sanctuary state laws.
Of the 4,000, at least 540 people were rearrested for new crimes, including charges such as, assault and battery, rape, murder, robbery and child molestation according to sheriff’s reports.
It’s unclear if those who were rearrested were turned over to ICE from county records since the documents didn’t specify.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Barnes highlighted how many people who were rearrested committed felonies, listing off over a dozen different people who were repeatedly rearrested for various crimes in Orange County.
“The facts I just shared demonstrate those who are not picked up by ICE continue to victimize our community,” Barnes said, noting some high-profile crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in other parts of the country.
“We don’t want tragedies like these in Orange County,” he said.
But many activists present at the meeting raised concerns about ICE detainer requests, saying it creates fear in immigrant communities that they could be deported next even if they haven’t committed a crime.
“It undermines public safety and impacts our economy,” said Carlos Perea, executive director for the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, during Tuesday’s public comment.
The institute also released a study highlighting the economic impact of deportations on Orange County, claiming that nearly 16,000 Orange County residents have pending immigration court cases and that their deportation or detainment would see over $26 million in state and local taxes go uncollected.
Mai Nguyen, the organization’s research and policy manager, said that it’s “inequitable” to have immigrants get treated differently under the law, and that studies show any level of cooperation with immigration enforcement lowers immigrants’ trust in local government.
“When people don’t trust local law enforcement and government to treat everyone equally, they don’t feel confident to go out, whether that’s to work, or to get the healthcare they need or to go to school,” Nguyen said in a Tuesday phone interview.
The number of inmates transferred to ICE began dropping significantly after 2019, when 492 people were transferred to immigration officials.
Meanwhile, not every immigration detainee gets picked up.
Data from the Sheriff’s Department notes over 300 inmates were referred to ICE, but federal law enforcement never came to pick them up over the past four years.
Most OC Supervisors who spoke at the meeting were broadly supportive of Barnes’ efforts, noting that the only people getting referred were violent criminals.
“For some folks, living in the United States is a privilege,” said Supervisor Don Wagner. “If that privilege is abused … it is entirely appropriate for the rest of us, of any nationality, of any origin to say we’re done with you. That’s what’s going on here.”
Supervisor Janet Nguyen agreed.
“Our top priority here is protecting Orange County residents,” Nguyen said.
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said that while he agreed there was no one looking to protect repeat offenders and violent criminals, the sheriffs need to increase their outreach efforts to the community to make it clear who is and isn’t impacted.
Sarmiento also said he’d like to see data showing that deportations help communities.
“I have yet to hear in the two years on this board that shows crime is being decreased as a result of this,” Sarmiento said. “Is this really achieving the goal we all want?”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.