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By JULIE JOHNSON and MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
(Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-day series on the impact of the federal government’s Secure Communities program. Click here to read Part 1: Deportation’s wide net)
The booking process at the Sonoma County Jail is rote: Details of the arrest are noted, a round of questions asked and a photograph and fingerprint are entered into a computer system. Much of this information is public.
Correctional Deputy Jason Esquibel takes a fingerprint of a male as he is booked into the Sonoma County Jail last week. Thanks to the Secure Communities program, all fingerprints are reviewed for immigration irregularities. (John Burgess / PD)
But transparency is sacrificed for a subset of inmates who press their right thumbs on what looks like a bar code scanner. The only information Sonoma County jail officials will reveal about them as a group is how many of them they release to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
These are the people tagged by Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program that uses biometric technology to flag possible illegal immigrants booked into jail as a way of ultimately deporting serious criminals. It has resulted in hundreds of illegal immigrants being handed over to ICE.
The federal agency reports broad criminal categories, ranging from serious felonies to minor misdemeanors to “non-criminals.” But what is not clear are details about the arrest, the violations that landed them in jail in the first place.
Between March 2, 2010, and Feb. 28, 2011, of the 921 inmates released to immigration officials, 433 inmates who were neither convicted of the crime that put them in jail, nor had they ever been convicted of a crime, according to an ICE report released in March. Another 225 immigrants released to ICE had only recent or prior convictions for minor misdemeanor crimes.
The large number of illegal immigrants classified as noncriminals and low-level criminals has raised concerns among immigration attorneys and local advocates who question why so many immigrants are ending up in jail for minor offenses, such as driving without a license.
And without transparency and tracking of arrest records under the Secure Communities program, it’s difficult to assess how illegal immigrants are ending up at the jail.
Michelle Crawford, a Santa Rosa immigration attorney, said family members of illegal immigrants often call her office in desperation, after an immigration “hold” has been placed. Undocumented immigrants facing serious criminal charges don’t bother calling, she said.
“The people that call me on the phone and the people that come into my office, the majority are driving without a license or some other thing where no charge is filed,” she said.
“I’m not talking about DUIs, there are a large number of people who feel that’s a dangerous crime,” Crawford said. “I’m talking about all these people who are simply stopped and asked, ‘Do you have a license? And if they don’t, they have removal proceedings.”
The Press Democrat has submitted formal public records requests to the Sheriff’s Office and ICE seeking specific arrest information about all the inmates released to ICE under Secure Communities. But the Sheriff’s Office has denied these requests. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to respond to a similar request.
In rejecting the public records request, the Sheriff’s Office cites a law that began as an emergency provision approved by the U.S. Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that officials said was meant to protect investigations into terrorist threats.
County jail officials have also declined requests for nonpersonal, general arrest information related to illegal immigrants tagged by Secure Communities. Such information could help answer why hundreds of “non-criminal” illegal immigrants are ending up in jail.
“It’s just a database,” said Sonoma County Assistant Sheriff Linda Suvoy, who runs the jail. “From where I sit, it hasn’t changed anything. It’s automatically sent to the FBI’s biometric system,” Suvoy said.
Santa Rosa Police Chief Tom Schwedhelm said far more people are arrested than convicted because officers use different standards to arrest a person than prosecutors use to convict a person.
“It’s ‘probable cause’ to make the arrest versus ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ to convict a person with a 12-person jury,” he said, adding, “If you believe my officers are stopping people without reason, please let me know and give me the information and I’ll check into it.”
The word for that is profiling, and a look at the arrest records would shed light on who is being picked up and why. Are the majority of those held for immigration holds there because of traffic stops? Local law enforcement officials have refused to say.
Sheriff Steve Freitas rejected the suggestion that local law enforcement uses a different standard for arresting people they suspect are illegal immigrants.
“Before Secure Communities (immigrant) advocates were accusing us of racial profiling and bias, but now everyone’s fingerprints go through secure communities,” Freitas said.
Prior to Secure Communities, local jail staff pulled information about newly booked inmates who appeared to be in the country illegally, he said, adding that ICE agents then reviewed the reports a few times each week. Secure Communities takes out that step for jail staff, he said.
“It removes the idea of profiling and discrimination from the whole topic,” Freitas said.
It does at the jail. But what about at the point of interaction — and arrest — with officers and deputies?
Among the nine counties in the Bay Area, Sonoma County had one of the highest percentage of non-criminals released to ICE, 47 percent, second only Napa (55.56 percent) and Marin (49.78 percent) counties. However, both those counties released far fewer people to the federal agency.
Sonoma County District Attorney’s officials said their record keepers don’t track data regarding illegal immigrant involvement in the cases that cross their desks. Prosecutors are often unaware of a defendant’s immigration status, said Christine Cook, office spokeswoman.
“We don’t keep records like that,” Cook said.
Last year, The Press Democrat began requesting information about inmates released to ICE custody from the jail. The Sheriff’s Office declined an October public records request for the names and other details gathered during booking of individuals taken from the jail by ICE agents. A records clerk said the request was an undue burden to the cash-strapped office, which is a legal response.
The Press Democrat responded in January with a pared-down request that was identical to a prior information request that sheriff’s officials provided a year before. Nine days later, that request was also rejected. A clerk cited several government codes that offer exemptions to information that would otherwise be public.
The clerk also said the information requested included the inmates’ criminal histories, however The Press Democrat request did not ask about prior convictions.
“The Sheriff’s Office believes that the names of jail inmates are protected from disclosure under the California Public Records Act,” the clerk said in a Feb. 15 email.
Attorneys from separate firms that specialize in open government laws pointed to state laws that say local law enforcement “shall make public” arrest information.
“It’s simply not clear to me how (the law) could authorize an agency to withhold the names of people who have been arrested,” said Katherine Keating, senior council for a San Francisco law firm Holme Roberts and Owen LLP, which staff’s the First Amendment Coalition’s legal hotline.
The Sheriff’s Office clerk, in an email, later cited a federal law that prevents local agencies from releasing information about people in the Sonoma County Jail who have been flagged by federal immigration officials as possible illegal aliens.
The law grew out of an emergency provision Congress passed in 2002 to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union from getting information about people arrested in the New York City area and detained in the weeks and months following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Federal agencies do have authority to release details about federal inmates on a case-by-case basis, an ICE spokeswoman said this week. Immigration officials are required to respond to The Press Democrat’s Freedom of Information Act request by Wednesday.
Last year, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, represented by Center for Constitutional Rights and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Immigration Justice Clinic filed a lawsuit against ICE after a Freedom of Information request seeking documents related to Secure Communities was denied.
Bridget Kessler, one of the Law School clinic attorneys representing the immigrant-rights group, said a federal court judge compelled the immigration service to release documents. The federal agency now publishes quarterly reports about the immigrants it identifies under Secure Communities.
B. Loewe, a spokesman for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, whose main office is in Los Angeles, said Secure Communities is actually a threat to immigrant communities because it keeps some victims from reporting crimes.
“Victims of crime including domestic violence survivors and witnesses of crimes now are second-guessing and deciding not to contact police, because of what might happen to them,” he said.
Supervisor Efren Carrillo said that while he trusts Freitas’ assessment of the program, he wishes the county could “opt out” of it.
“I wish we had the power to opt out of Secure Communities,” he said. “In my opinion it creates a problem in our community. This program should have been focused on ensuring that repeat felons are not in our community.”
But he said “this is the sheriff’s call it’s not the Board of Supervisors’ call.”
Law enforcement officials say they are obligated to uphold the law and stop people they believe are breaking it; they’re just doing their job.
“One sure way to avoid being pulled over: don’t commit traffic violations,” Santa Rosa Police Chief Tom Schwedhelm said. “I’m not going to apologize for our officers being tough on traffic violations because we believe it saves lives.”
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Please excuse the errors in my previous post. I meant of course that this site “doesn’t” use Facebook for commenting and, silly me, called Sonoma Santa Rosa County.
I still long for the day when newspapers have the integrity to respect the views of the non-elites on the issue of illegal immigration. Maybe they might even consider employing someone that differs from their beliefs on the issue. So far that’s not what they mean by diversity in the newsroom.
I’m happy to have found this alternative site for the articles of the Press-Democrat. Not only are the comments much better, they are made using the Facebook application which allows for easy censorship by the newspaper. You won’t know your are being censored by seeing your comments because it won’t be visible to other people. How transparent is that for a paper complaining about the transparency of others?
Here’s a post of mine that the readers at the PD website didn’t see:
There is no right to be in the country illegally absent the commission of a crime acknowledged by illegal immigration advocates to be worthy of removal. There is however a right for the citizens of a country to limit immigration and have the laws enforced that are necessary to do that. Unfortunately, despite the radical illegal immigration agenda of the newspaper industry that portrays even the token enforcement by the government as something wrong, for the most part our government makes widespread illegal immigration possible. But that massive government complicity in immigration law breaking is simply ignored by newspapers in favor of narratives pushing their agenda. Even with regard to Secure Communities in Santa Rosa County, only about half the arrested people that were identified by the program were taken into custody by ICE and only half of those were deported. Identified illegal immigrants that are in custody of the government are simply let go to remain in the country.
We have been kowtowing to the “illegal community” too long. We as a whole have failed to abide by our own laws by even allowing “illegals” to vote in 2008.
How are illegals treated in other countries? Harsher than we do. We treat them like they are royalty. For what? Why are they given special treatment? Remember the 2010 campaign and Meg Whitman’s illegal houseworker? As soon as Ms. Whitman knew of the employee being illegal she fired her. What came out was that even the attornies representing this illegal who did everything against the law wanted to get a large cash reward for breaking very law they are suppose to uphold. For this main reason they should have been disbarred. It’s a corruption of justice.
Now nearly every state of the US has an issue with illegal immigration. California is near bankrupt due to this (and other issues). No I am not making this up. Even the late Cesar Chavez was against illegal immigration. When we start ignoring the law, the country as a whole crumbles.
Martin Espinoza: What part of ILLEGAL don’t you understand?
If the willow in the wind, Supervisor Carrillo, wants to stop law enforcement from enforcing the law, let him vote for it not just talk about it.
We probably lost the illegal immigation war long ago, but that should not stop us from trying to turn it around. It is having a profound effect on our society, culture and country. When do we say enough is enough illegal aliens coming north accross the border for economic reasons.
Mexico is a basket case, an unstable, chaotic, crime ridden country with a surplus population of unemployed people. Who made it that way? The Mexicans and who can fix it? The Mexicans.
The US can help but a stable, honest government and police have to be in place first. That is the job of the Mexican citizens. The US acting as a relieve value for this mess is unacceptable and cannot go on.
Illegal immigation is just that illegal and unlawful. Enforce the laws and stop voting for weak kneed politicans who do not act in the interest of the citizens of this country.
Good post Graeme.
Hispanics make up about about 31% of the population in Sonoma County so you would expect a significant portion of people pulled over for a routine traffic stop to be significant.
If the driver has no license, registration or insurance what do you expect the police to do.
I have no idea the relative percentages of unlicensed drivers by demographic but what this story suggests is that it is higher in the Hispanic population.
The Police are simply following the Law and, believe me, if I lacked the proper documentation in the approximately 6 or so times I’ve been pulled over in Sonoma County over the past 30 years I’d be dealt with harshly also.
If I lacked the proper papers driving when I lived in South America, believe me, I would not simply be allowed along my way.
“The large number of illegal immigrants classified as noncriminals and low-level criminals has raised concerns among immigration attorneys and local advocates who question why so many immigrants are ending up in jail for minor offenses, such as driving without a license.”
First off, if you are driving without a license (and therefore insurance) you are a danger to the community and I for one want you removed. Same for “low-level criminals”. If you are in this country illegally we don’t want you here period, especially if you are committing crimes! If you are using fake IDs, that too is a crime which demonstrates further your lack of respect for our laws, including the ones broken when you crossed the border in the first place.
We do not want you here. We do not want to educate your kids, we do not want to provide you with free medical services, we do not want you clogging our emergency rooms when your kids get the sniffles, we do not want you taking our construction jobs and sending your pay back home. Go home.
Why is it that people here illegally should somehow be treated differently or receive a benefit that those of us either born here or who immigrated legally don’t get. When I’m pulled over for a traffic violation, a public offense, I must provide proof of insurance and a valid drivers license. If I can’t establish who I am and that the car is inusred then I would expect to have the car towed and to be arrested and booked based on our current vehicle code and penal code laws (which by the way, I’m familiar with in a minimal way as a part of taking and passing a drivers licens test). There is no positive aspect of illegal immigration any way you look at it. It creates a pool of victims for crime or just greedy employers to take advantage of, it creates a population of people that are completely undocumented which is not advantageous to our national security, it creates a population of people that don’t see themselves necessarily as Americans but as people who want to take advantage of economic opportunities that my not exist in their own countries, it creates populations of people that don’t speak or read english and instead only speak their native language (whatever that may be)….and I could go on and on and on. There is a reason that any nation must create and enforce laws governing immigration and we need to remember them and start enforcing our laws. So lets not focus on our local Sheriff doing what he should and focus instead on the real problem, illegal immigration.
@Johnson and Espinoza – “The word for that is profiling, and a look at the arrest records would shed light on who is being picked up and why. Are the majority of those held for immigration holds there because of traffic stops?”
For reporters covering the police beat or trying to do investigative work they don’t seem to be particularly good at figuring out the obvious. Here’s the solution to the “mystery” of illegals being in jail for “traffic violations.”
You get pulled over, you have no ID or driver license, you (hypothetically) say your name is Jose Garcia and your birthday is X. Officer checks the computer – nothing. Now, is he just going to write a ticket to “Jose Garcia” and let him go? No. There is a provision in the vehicle code that allows an officer to take into custody anyone cited for a traffic offence where their identity cannot be established with certainty for the purpose of establishing their identity.
Usually this is related to people giving false names to avoid a ticket. So, the officer can take a picture and fingerprints to prove who he gave the ticket to. People show up in traffic court all the time and say the officer wrote the ticket to someone who used their name, but not to them. The photo and fingerprints prove identity – the very purpose of taking someone into custody for the traffic violation.
People who are who they say they are or can be identified are released. If they gave a false name or someone else’s real name, then they face an additional charge of providing a false name to an officer or an identity offense claim. Should Latinos be given a pass if they provide a false name or someone else’s name?
In the process of identifying a traffic violator, if the police discover the person was previously booked as “Jose Lopez” and as “Juan Rodriguez” or what have you they know who they have arrested regardless of the name they are giving.
The police chief in Santa Rosa was a top-notch motor officer at one point and the reporters never really wanted to know the obvious answers and never asked the obvious questions.
Profiling? It seems our illegal community wants special privileges to escape the consequences of traffic offenses. Is a white guy giving his name as John Smith of James Jones expecting that an officer is supposed to write a ticket to a generic name and let them go after writing down whatever name they give? Why would a Latino expect to be treated differently than anyone else?
The reporters want a story about profiling. However, the reality is that the lack of profiling and the demand for equal treatment for all is the very reason this problem exists for Latinos.
If a fingerprint check discovers an illegal immigrant using multiple names every time he or she is stopped by police, why does anyone believe they should get a pass? There is no reason for any particular community to get special treatment. The Latinos are getting equal treatment — that is the problem.