SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) — Final month, throughout first week of the President Donald Trump’s second administration, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes launched a press release saying his division “doesn’t implement federal immigration legislation. It’s not a part of our major mission, and we stay centered on violations of state and native legal guidelines.”
The assertion went on to reassure residents that the company would reply to requires service no matter an individual’s immigration standing.
In an interview with ABC7 this week, Barnes mentioned his message to the general public.
“I assumed it was essential to reiterate that we don’t do federal immigration enforcement on the road stage,” the sheriff stated. “We now have by no means finished that, we now have no intention of doing that, and we won’t do this.”
What the Sheriff’s Division does is collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the custodial stage by transferring incarcerated inmates to ICE custody.
The state’s SB 54 legislation, also referred to as the California Values Act, limits whom deputies can maintain for or switch to ICE custody. Convicts of significant and violent felonies, for instance, are eligible for switch.
“I’ve no drawback with anyone being right here and attempting to hunt a greater life. I do not assume anyone does,” Barnes instructed ABC7. “My greatest concern at all times has been the protection of our communities.
“And we now have folks — no matter immigration standing — in the event that they commit severe crimes, they need to be held accountable,” the sheriff stated. “And in the event that they’re very severe crimes — and ICE would not need all of them, they need probably the most severe — we must always have the ability to flip them over in a custodial atmosphere so they do not return to the communities by which they prey upon. That is at all times been my chief concern with SB 54.”
The Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Financial Justice has been analyzing these transfers since 2018.
The nonprofit’s analysis and coverage supervisor, Mai Do, stated that as of 2023, the OC Sheriff’s Division is certainly one of 11 law-enforcement businesses throughout California nonetheless conducting ICE transfers. She says this collaboration decreases public security by hurting belief.
“As a result of native leaders, as a result of native legislation enforcement businesses aren’t establishing that vibrant, laborious line in the case of not working with federal immigration enforcement, it turns into laborious to belief native authorities and to belief native legislation enforcement,” she stated. “If you say, ‘Oh, we’re solely going to work with them in these circumstances,’ properly, how can we belief that you just will not work with them in different circumstances?”
In line with information from the California legal professional basic’s workplace, the OC Sheriff’s Division transferred greater than 1,000 folks to ICE from 2019 by 2023. That is probably the most transfers to immigration of all California legislation enforcement businesses since 2019.
When ABC7 requested why the OCSD’s switch totals have been so excessive when in comparison with different businesses within the state, Barnes replied: “It is not excessive numbers, it is a mathematical quantity. Orange County is the third-most populous within the state. We now have a excessive immigrant inhabitants right here — not simply from South America or Mexico, from all around the world. We now have a big Vietnamese inhabitants. We now have a big Center Japanese inhabitants — not all of these are offending.”
Knowledge gathered by the Harbor Institute confirmed that since 2021, these transfers have been increased amongst folks from Mexico, adopted by these from Vietnam and Colombia.
“Vietnamese group members particularly are actually disproportionately impacted,” Do stated. “They make up about 16% of foreign-born residents within the county and but persistently make up way more than 40%, going as much as 60% and better of transfers from the Orange County Sheriff’s Division to ICE. And so it is actually essential that people perceive that — it isn’t only one specific group of individuals that’s being impacted by immigration enforcement, it is all of our immigrant refugee communities right here in Orange County.”
In line with an OCSD spokesperson, the sheriff will likely be presenting the 2024 ICE information to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. That presentation is tentatively scheduled for March 25.
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