ZERO ICE TRANSFERS

For years, Los Angeles County transferred more people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detention and deportation than any other state in the nation, except Texas. 

L.A. County was the first in the nation more than 15 years ago to roll out an ICE program called 287(g) that deputized Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) deputies to act as immigration agents.  Under 287(g), sheriff’s deputies in the L.A. County jails racially profiled and picked people out of the release line based on the color of their skin, what country they were born in, and whether or not they spoke English—and then interrogated them as if they were immigration agents.  Too many Angelenos were deported this way. 

In 2008, L.A. County again was one of the earliest in the country to adopt ICE’s Secure Communities program, which through the simple sharing of fingerprints, transformed our criminal legal system into a deportation pipeline.

Just in 2018 and 2019 alone, LASD transferred about 1,500 Angelenos to ICE, furthering family separation—not at the border—but right here in our backyard.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) has handed over to ICE Angelenos whom the court has released to return home and reunite with their loved ones. 

Instead of releasing people due to return home and reunite with their loved ones, LASD turned them over to ICE to be hauled away two hours away to its Adelanto detention center—the largest in the western United States—where they would spend months, if not years, fighting their deportation cases. At Adelanto and throughout the country, ICE has directly contributed to the spread of COVID-19.

We’re talking about people like Hector Barajas, a U.S. Army veteran and Compton resident since he was seven. LASD sheriff’s deputies arrested him for a warrant on an unpaid traffic ticket and transferred him to ICE. He was deported and separated from his newborn daughter for almost 10 years until he came back home to L.A. after a pardon from Governor Jerry Brown. Here is a video of Hector speaking about his experience: https://bit.ly/3hL7bc2.

We’re talking about people like Kent Mendoza with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition.  LASD sheriff’s deputies transferred him to ICE after he served a juvenile sentence.  He was almost deported but instead got lucky and stumbled upon a rare second chance, came home to his family, and turned his life around.  Here’s Kent’s bog: https://bit.ly/2EEzw5K.

We’re talking about people like Luis “George” Lopez, a South L.A. resident for 39 years since he was one. A judge ordered him released but LASD sheriff’s deputies transferred him to ICE from the downtown L.A. court. He spent 19 months in Adelanto until Esperanza Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU SoCal won his release because of COVID-19. Here is a video of George speaking about his experience: https://bit.ly/3hLmWzO.

Sheriff Villanueva pulled a major “Bait-and-Switch” on immigration.

During Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s campaign for sheriff, he promised voters that L.A. County would no longer facilitate the separation of immigrant families caused by ICE’s cruel detention and deportation practices. His upset election was primarily a referendum on former Sheriff Jim McDonnell’s stance and policies of local cooperation with ICE. Villanueva committed to physically removing and barring ICE from all LASD property, including for purposes of transfers of individuals to ICE custody, improving the California Values Act’s (SB 54) protections for county residents, and rebuilding trust with immigrant community members.

The policies that Villanueva adopted as sheriff, however, were practically business as usual. In particular, replacing ICE agents with private contractors working on behalf of ICE to handle the arrest and transfer of individuals in LASD custody to ICE was a difference that was cosmetic only—with largely the same overall result. While uniformed ICE agents no longer had access to LASD facilities, Villanueva instead gave free admission to ICE private contractors to make arrests on ICE’s behalf. Simply replacing ICE agents with third-party contractors disguised the true impact of these actions—that is, they continued to place thousands of Angelenos at heightened risk of ICE detention and deportation.

In 2019, during Villanueva’s first year as sheriff, LASD transferred 457 Angelenos to ICE.

Zero ICE Transfers campaign ended ICE transfers without a judicial warrant.

It is only after our Check the Sheriff Coalition kept pushing through our Zero ICE Transfers campaign—and after we leveraged the pandemic and ICE’s callous disregard for human life in its detention facilities and its violations of immigrants’ constitutional rights—that we forced Villanueva to issue a moratorium on ICE transfers starting in April 2020.

More importantly, we waged an advocacy campaign urging the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (Board) to pass a County policy prohibiting all ICE transfers absent a judicial warrant. CHIRLA, the ACLU of Southern California, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and other immigrants’ rights organizations led this campaign, and we worked closely with Supervisor Hilda Solis to develop this motion.

On August 3, 2020, after Villanueva got wind of the Board motion we had in the works, he made his moratorium on ICE transfers “permanent.”  Nevertheless, despite Villanueva’s description of the moratorium as “permanent,” it was not so.  Rather, the policy was still temporary, as it was subject to be terminated or reversed at the discretion of Villanueva or another sheriff.

On September 1, 2020, the Board passed the motion (Ending ICE Transfers Without a Judicial Warrant in LA County) on a 4-0 vote to ensure, once and for all, that Angelenos do not end up in the clutches of a rogue agency with no regard for their civil and human rights. As an important statement of the County’s values, and to create a necessary and truly permanent layer of protection to safeguard our people’s constitutional rights as well as the County’s finances, the County required ICE and federal immigration authorities to obtain a judicial probable cause determination if they seek to arrest and detain immigrant Angelenos in LASD custody.

For the record, here are our some important coalition letters and resources throughout our Zero ICE Transfers campaign.

• Zero ICE Transfers Letter: End Cooperation with ICE and Expand SB 54 Protections (March 26, 2019)

• Zero ICE Transfers Letter: The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Should Prohibit the Sheriff’s Department’s Use of County Resources in its Entanglement With ICE (Oct. 29, 2019)

• Zero ICE Transfers Letter: Instead of Funding the Sheriff’s Department’s Entanglement with ICE, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Should Expand the Los Angeles Justice Fund (March 4, 2020)

• Zero ICE Transfers Letter: In Light of COVID-19, Immediately Stop the Transfers of Angelenos into the Custody of Federal Immigration Authorities and the Adelanto Immigration Prison (March 19, 2020)

• Zero ICE Transfers Letter re: Ending ICE Transfers Without a Judicial Warrant in L.A. County (August 31, 2020)

• L.A. County Board of Supervisors Motion: Ending ICE Transfers Without a Judicial Warrant in LA County (September 1, 2020)

• Zero ICE Transfers Press Statement: Motion Passed by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Enshrines as County Policy a Recently Enacted Sheriff’s Internal Policy, to Strengthen Protections for Immigrants (September 1, 2020)

This win could not be more monumental: the nation’s largest county, which was among the first to embrace the federal government’s devastating deportation programs, is now leading the way in the opposite—in the right—direction by ending warrantless ICE transfers.  More importantly, this win has ensured families remain together; indeed, it has saved lives.