While Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detainer requests to Merced County Jail grew to a five-year high last year, no incarcerated immigrants in Merced County were arrested by ICE for the second year in a row, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Undersheriff Corey Gibson presented new figures at the annual TRUTH Act forum during the Merced County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.
While the forum has previously drawn many comments from the public, this year’s forum did not draw any comments from residents or county supervisors.
The California law, enacted in 2018, requires law enforcement agencies to report, in a public forum, ICE activity in their local communities, as well as their cooperation with ICE.
In 2023, the Merced County Jail received 179 immigration detainer requests from ICE, the Sheriff’s Office reported. That’s an all-time high since the sheriff began reporting the statistics under the TRUTH Act in 2019.
An ICE detainer is a written request to a local law enforcement agency to hold a person 48 hours longer than their initial release date, so ICE can determine whether they will arrest that person.
Any person booked into Merced County Jail is fingerprinted, and the California Department of Justice and FBI analyze the fingerprints to determine if they match undocumented people in the country. If a match is found, a detainer request is emailed to the Sheriff’s Office and flagged on the incarcerated person’s booking file.
The Sheriff’s Office does not place a hold on the incarcerated person or transfer them to ICE unless the detainer request is related to a federal warrant, Gibson said.
Gibson also shared statistics on ethnicity and criminal charges for the incarcerated immigrants ICE sought detainers for.
“In the past few years, the Sheriff’s Office has seen an increase in enforcement action in the community from ICE. This is believed to be due to the lack of communication from the correctional facility,” Gibson said during Tuesday’s forum.
Community groups and residents in the past have called on the Sheriff’s Office to stop handing any incarcerated immigrant to ICE altogether.
When Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke first began following the guidelines set forth by the TRUTH Act, he took the opportunity to dispel so-called “myths” about his office’s collaboration with ICE.
Gibson did the same on Tuesday, noting that ICE doesn’t have office space in the county jail, saying ICE agents did not conduct any interviews in the county jail in 2023.
Additionally, deputies do not seek information about immigration status from anyone they stop, arrest or book.
For second year, no jailed Merced County immigrants were arrested by ICE, sheriff reports?????????? No wonder we have problems in the county, an incompetent sheriff too busy wearing necklaces and cowboy hats to rid us of illegal aliens!!! Known far and wide as the Merced Wanker!!! Prisoner escapes, saying he’ll round up people during covid while his deputies have no mask beer parties after work. FIIRE THIS LOON!!