ICE is destroying trust in law enforcement across the country. They’ve shot and killed non-violent civilians, including a poet and a nurse in Minneapolis. They refuse to investigate those shootings, instead pronouncing immediately that no investigation is needed because the shootings were clearly justified. They’ve detained children, using them as bait to detain their parents. They’ve deported disabled children here on humanitarian visas and asylum claims. And they appear to be using AI and a government database to track protesters and civilians merely filming ICE agents.
Law enforcement can’t keep cooperating with this kind of an agency and retain our moral authority to police. Moreover, that loss of moral authority leads to real and practical day-to-day policing challenges: for example, it is harder and harder for our local law enforcement officers to gain community cooperation on serious crimes, like tracking down guns and making arrests for violent crimes. Listen to Santa Rosa Chief of Police John Cregan speak passionately and directly to how ICE’s conduct has made it harder for his officers to police Santa Rosa.
This is why increasingly law enforcement leaders have stopped cooperating with ICE. Here in Sonoma County, many in our community are also asking us to not cooperate with ICE unless the law requires it.
One way many local agencies have stopped cooperating with ICE is to opt out of the State Criminal Aliens Assistance Program (SCAAP). SCAPP was created in the 1990s to reimburse local government for the cost of jailing suspects who also lacked lawful immigration status. In exchange for listing the details of such persons detained in the jail, a county like ours can get a check from the federal government for some of those costs. It is still legal in California for counties to participate in this program.
Media reports that many counties have stopped participating in SCAAP because they object to providing this prisoner data to ICE. Granted, this prisoner information is largely from the year before the grant application is submitted, but some of those prisoners may still be in the jail by the time their information is turned over in the application. Los Angeles Sheriff Luna, in particular, noted this program felt to him like “selling” the personal information of prisoners to ICE. Counties that have opted out are reported to include Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Just recently, Marin County opted out of participating in SCAAP, too. And because of that, we’re increasingly being asked at IOLERO if Sonoma County participates in SCAAP.
This year, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office is also opting out of SCAAP. We think Sheriff Engram deserves praise for that decision. Not everyone will agree with him, of course. And this decision does come at some financial cost: in past years, SCAAP payments to Sonoma County have ranged from about $75,000 to $100,000 annually. At IOLERO, we think that’s worth showing the community they can trust that local law enforcement doesn’t cooperate with ICE. So if you agree that opting out of SCAAP is a good idea, letting the Sheriff know you support his decision would be a help. The Sheriff’s Budget presentation to the Board is set for the afternoon of April 22, and may be a good time to provide your feedback.
A second way to opt out of cooperating with ICE comes when ICE asks for information from our jail about who is currently held there. This is done through a form called an “I-247.” California law allows Sheriffs to respond to these forms, but neither state nor federal law requires a response. And just to be clear, this is an entirely separate process from ICE arresting someone at the jail on an arrest warrant signed by a judge. That process uses a nationwide electronic notification system that flags persons with arrest warrants once they are fingerprinted at the jail. The I-247 system, in contrast, allows ICE to ask for information on anyone. So as a practical matter, the main reason for ICE to use I-247s is to gain information on people who don’t have pending warrants.
Los Cien, a leading voice in the Latino Community, recently called for the Sheriff to stop sharing this data. So has United Way, and First Five, a group dedicated to the health of young children, including immigrants. And Supervisor Chris Coursey has called for a stop, too.
We agree with these voices asking for the Sheriff to stop complying with ICE I-247 requests. This isn’t the right decision for every community, but here in Sonoma County there’s a clear and growing fear that this process is being used to second-guess our own criminal justice system. After all, the reason for ICE to use the I-247 is to identify people who our judges and juries are about to release – people who have served their time – and who do not have a warrant out for their arrest on some other charge.
Sheriff Engram made positive progress on this issue last year by dialing-back how often his staff provide answers to I-247s. One such change last year was not notifying ICE about people who were held on charges, but not convicted yet. That way, at least guilt would be determined first. He also narrowed the kinds of offenses that would trigger sharing information with ICE. Not everyone agreed with these decisions, but last year these decisions struck us at IOLERO as consistent with most Sonoma County residents’ thinking on this issue. Sheriff Engram deserves praise for those changes last year, too.
This year, IOLERO joins Los Cien, United Way, First Five, and Supervisor Coursey in asking the Sheriff to consider stopping giving information to ICE on I-247 altogether. If someone in the jail has a federal warrant, ICE can still arrest them without the I-247 process. And if someone in our jail is sent to prison by a Sonoma County judge, then ICE can find those people in prison. So the people who our judges have said should go back to the community are the only people ICE is really identifying through this I-247 process. Moreover, if ICE really wants to find those people they can use other public records, like court records, that have to be made public.
This change wouldn’t involve many people – likely about fifty a year, at most – but the impact on community trust is much greater.
This change is also a help for jail staff. We know of at least one case in which a jail employee told ICE where to find such a person based just on a good faith misunderstanding of how the current policies work. A straightforward policy of not answering I-247s is much easier for them to comply with. The existing complexity of our I-247 approach isn’t serving a criminal justice purpose and is undermining trust in the Sonoma County law enforcement system.
On the evening of May 12, the Sheriff will give his annual report on these issues – called the “TRUTH Act” forum – to the Board of Supervisors. That’s an opportunity for you, the community, to provide feedback on this issue, one way or the other.
The Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach (IOLERO): IOLERO’s mission is to strengthen the relationship between the Sheriff’s Office and the community it serves through outreach and the promotion of greater transparency of law enforcement operations.
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