‘This is a dramatic shift.’ Fresno County transfers nearly 50 to ICE in latest report
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office says it handed 47 undocumented people into the hands of immigration agents in 2020, marking a significant increase in the number of transfers reported by the agency compared with previous years, statistics show.
The stark change in the numbers made an attorney at the ACLU of Northern California question the accuracy of statistics in previous years. Doubts on the numbers, the attorney said, follow the sudden increase and a report by The Fresno Bee that revealed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own figures in previous years were much higher than those being reported by the Sheriff’s Office.
The newest figures were presented Tuesday during a TRUTH Act forum during the Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Sheriff Margaret Mims briefly read over the statistics without making any further comment. There was no discussion among the supervisors on the issue, and one in-person public comment: A woman from Clovis thanked Mims for “working with ICE.”
ACLU cites Bee report
Maria Romani, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, submitted a written public comment at the forum and a copy was provided to The Bee. Mims, she said, has inconsistently reported the number of people her office has transferred to ICE.
For example, Mims reported having transferred only three people to ICE in 2018, but soon after retracted that information. Mims said those individuals had been taken into custody by immigration agents after they left the secured area at the Fresno County Jail and were not considered transfers.
However, statistics from the California Department of Justice showed Mims had reported four transfers in 2018. Romani took note that The Bee had uncovered ICE records showing that the sheriff’s office had transferred at least 102 people to ICE custody that year.
“Today, Sheriff Mims is suddenly reporting to have voluntarily transferred at least 47 people into ICE custody in 2020,” Romani wrote. ”This is a dramatic shift that should cause this Board to look into the accuracy of the data that was reported over the last several years.”
More alarming, Romani said, is that Mims chose to transfer those individuals to ICE in the middle of the pandemic. Several COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported at immigration detention facilities.
“These are community members who would otherwise be allowed to return to their homes and to their families,” Romani wrote. “The COVID-19 pandemic heightens the cruelty of this practice.”
According to the new statistics, of the 47 individuals who were transferred to ICE, 23 had involvement with crimes against persons, one had served time for a sex crime, and 10 others had committed crimes against property. Another 13 had served time for a drug/DUI offense.
Mims reported one transfer to ICE in 2019, according to statistics.
Nine months later, a Fresno Bee follow-up public-records request is pending with ICE seeking the number of people arrested in 2019 and 2020 by the agency in a Fresno County jail area called the vestibule.
The vestibule is a secured room with an electronically locked door on each end that only correctional officers are allowed to unlock. A sign outside the publicly facing door says: “Entering secured area.”
A prior public-records request by The Bee, specifically seeking the number of arrests in the vestibule in 2018, showed ICE had arrested 102 people in 2018.
Mims has argued some arrests are not transfers, but rather re-arrests. Attorneys have said Mims is blurring the lines to buck against an immigration law she doesn’t support.
TRUTH Act forum
Under the TRUTH Act, local jurisdictions and law enforcement in 2018 were mandated to hold a public forum to let the community know about local activities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The law also requires local law enforcement to release statistics on whether they cooperated with ICE the previous calendar year.
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