The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, for the first time since 2020, is once again transferring jail inmates to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, releasing 20 inmates since May through a legal maneuver that is not blocked by local sanctuary policies.
According to sheriff's department records reviewed by The Los Angeles Times, the department released eight inmates to ICE in May and another 12 in June.
Eleven of those transferred are Mexican, six are from Guatemala, and one each came from Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras. They ranged in age from 19 to 63 years old.
One of the prisoners transferred in May had been sentenced to six years in prison after a conviction of felony voluntary manslaughter, county court records show.
Another of the May transfers involved a person who pleaded not guilty to a domestic violence-related crime, and a third had been sentenced to 99 days in the county jail for violating post-release supervision.
It was not immediately clear what charges the other five inmates transferred in May had been facing, and information wasn't released about the June inmates' charges.
The transfers were the first since 43 people were turned over to ICE custody in early 2020, a sharp drop from the 457 who were transferred to federal custody in 2019, when President Donald Trump was still serving his first term in office.
The transfers followed state, county, and city ordinances and sanctuary policies that were approved in recent years, the sheriff's department and legal experts said.
Federal judicial warrants were obtained for all but one of the inmates released in May and June, according to the sheriff's department records.
That inmate was transferred because he'd been extradited to the United States to face criminal charges based on an agreement between ICE and the LA county district attorney and sheriff to honor the immigration detainer.
"We have been monitoring sheriff messaging on ICE cooperation and it is our understanding that the recent transfers of prisoners to ICE are all in response to judicially issued warrants as required by federal and state law," LA County Inspector General Max Huntsman said in a statement to the media. "Despite 'sanctuary' rhetoric, we are unaware of any conflict between California and federal law on this requirement."
The sheriff's department, in a separate statement, said that "state and county law/policy allow for cooperation in response to a judicial warrant."
The department added that it could not say "for a certainty" that it has not received such warrants before, but "we hadn't received any of these warrants in the past several years."
Sanctuary laws, which prohibit local authorities from enforcing civil immigration laws, make exceptions for cases involving criminal offenses.
Those recently transferred face charges that include illegally reentering the United States after having been previously deported, which is a federal crime that can result in being sent to prison for several years.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, reported last week that more than 2,700 people were arrested in the LA area since it launched a crackdown in June. Such detainees are sent to federal immigration detention facilities rather than county jails.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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