LOS ANGELES -- Sheriffs across the nation are openly rejecting the U.S. policy of holding noncitizens who are accused or convicted of crimes for extra time, which for years has enabled the federal government to begin deportation proceedings for thousands of illegal aliens.
This spring, a federal judge in Oregon ruled that a sheriff there had violated one foreign woman's civil rights by holding her in the county jail solely at the request of federal agents. Almost immediately, sheriffs across the state started refusing to honor the policy, which asks them to hold illegal alien inmates without probable cause for a criminal violation, a process known as a detainer.
Now, dozens of sheriffs are doing the same: releasing noncitizen offenders who have served their time rather than holding them longer on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security.
For years, the administration has asked them to hold such people for up to 48 hours after they were scheduled for release, giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement extra time to investigate whether they could be deported for immigration violations.
But sheriffs -- many of them in California, and some in Minnesota, Kansas and Washington -- have said the court decision in Oregon forces their hand, because they cannot risk doing something that a U.S. magistrate judge has found unconstitutional.
"When a judge says something is in violation of the Fourth Amendment, I am not going to just keep doing it," said Sheriff William Gore of San Diego.
President Barack Obama's administration expanded the detainer program as a way to strengthen immigration enforcement and create a uniform policy for local police and sheriffs' offices.
Under the program, jails are supposed to send the fingerprints of everyone arrested to the Department of Homeland Security, where they can be checked against databases tracking immigration violations, and to hold people in custody while they are investigated.
Federal officials initially described the program as voluntary, then later implied that all local law enforcement agencies were required to comply. But more and more local leaders have pushed back -- the mayor of Boston recently joined the fray, and the sheriff in Orange County, Calif., widely considered a conservative pocket in California, has also decided not to abide by the holds.
In San Bernardino County, Calif., where illegal aliens make up roughly 6 percent of the population, the sheriff's office decided to stop abiding by federal detainer requests within weeks of the ruling in Oregon.
Last year, an average of 110 inmates were turned over each month to federal immigration agents. Now, that number is zero.
"Until there is a clearly legally binding decision that outlines the legality of the detainers and what is needed to honor them, we really do not see any reason we should open ourselves up to potential lawsuits," said Cpl. Lolita Harper, the department's Hispanic community liaison. "Our decision has certainly been embraced by the immigration activists, but that really wasn't what this was about at all."
A Section on 07/06/2014