Orange County Jails To Stop Housing ICE Detainees
SANTA ANA (CBSLA) – Orange County jails will no longer house Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees in order to use that space for mental health services, authorities announced Wednesday.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department reports that it is terminating its detainee agreement with ICE "in order to address the mental health crisis within Orange County jails."
Although O.C. has a contract with ICE which does not expire until July of 2020, it has chosen to terminate its contract early. Once officially terminated, ICE will have 120 days to transfer its detainees to other facilities.
"Since 2015, we have seen a 40% increase in open mental health cases in our jails," Sheriff Don Barnes said in a statement. "The number of mental health cases now reach almost 1,800 on any given day. Consequently, we must focus on enhancing our mental health services and expanding the number of beds available for individuals with mental health needs."
According to the sheriff's department, 30 percent of its inmates require some form of mental health services.
The sheriff's department emphasized that its decision to end the contract would not impact its cooperation with ICE. The sheriff's department has publicly opposed California's sanctuary state law, Senate Bill 54, which took effect in January 2018.
SB-54 extends protections for immigrants living in the United States illegally. Under it, police are barred from asking people about their immigration status or participating in immigration enforcement activities. Jail officials are only allowed to transfer inmates to federal immigration authorities if they have been convicted of certain crimes.
Last March, the department announced it would start providing public information regarding the date and time inmates are released from custody in order to alert ICE agents to the release of violent offenders who have ICE detainers.
"The decision to end the ICE agreement will not impact public safety," the department said in a news release Wednesday. "OCSD will continue to work with ICE within the confines of SB-54 to ensure they are alerted to the release of serious and violent offenders within our custody who have ICE detainers."
Meanwhile, OCSD also reported Wednesday that, due to SB-54, most of the ICE detainees removed from O.C. jails as a result of the terminated contract will likely be relocated out of state.
OCSD has been leasing bed space to ICE since 2010.
ICE Wednesday afternoon provided the following statement to CBS2:
"The Orange County sheriff's decision to no longer house ICE detainees at its detention facilities as of Aug. 1, 2019, will negatively impact local ICE operations; however, the impact will be greater for those who would have been detained at the facility. Now, instead of being housed close to family members or local attorneys, ICE will have to depend on its national system of detention bed space to place those detainees in locations farther away reducing the opportunities for in-person family visitation and attorney coordination."