THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE last week issued requests to sheriffs in some California counties, including San Francisco, to turn over lists of all inmates in their jails who are not citizens, along with their alleged crimes or convictions and scheduled release dates.
A DOJ announcement about the requests specifically mentions Los Angeles along with San Francisco.
San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto sharply responded to the DOJ’s intentions, saying that his office would not participate in civil immigration enforcement.
“The federal government already knows the identity and has the fingerprints of every inmate in San Francisco’s jails,” said Miyamoto in a statement released by his office Thursday. “If the federal government has a legal reason to arrest someone, they can do so by obtaining a criminal warrant or court order.”
Miyamoto said the Sheriff’s Office will honor judicial warrants.
“My priority is public safety — not politics,” said the sheriff. “We will not foster fear in immigrant communities by acting as an arm of immigration enforcement.”
San Francisco’s sanctuary laws bar the Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the jails, from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in most instances.
According to the City and County Refuge ordinance passed by the Board of Supervisors in 1989, San Francisco prohibits city and county employees from using city funds or resources to assist ICE.
In 2013, San Francisco passed the Due Process for All ordinance, which specifically limits when law enforcement can give ICE advance notice of a person’s release from jail.
San Francisco’s sanctuary laws were again amended in 2016, however, to say that release status could be made available in limited circumstances.
“My priority is public safety — not politics. “We will not foster fear in immigrant communities by acting as an arm of immigration enforcement.”
San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto
“Today’s data requests are designed to assist federal immigration authorities in prioritizing the removal of illegal aliens who committed crimes after illegally entering the United States,” reads the DOJ announcement. “Although every illegal alien by definition violates federal law, those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our nation’s safety and security.”
The announcement states that “far too many illegal aliens” go on to commit rapes, murders and other violent crimes.
Statistically, by looking at data from the state of Texas, U.S. citizens are over two times more likely than undocumented immigrants to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over four times more likely to be arrested for property crimes, according to a 2020 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences using data from the National Institutes of Health.
Detentions of undocumented residents with no criminal record under ICE are becoming increasingly unpopular with the public. A Pew Research Center study released in March said only 32% of American adults wanted to see all undocumented people deported. When it comes to immigrants who commit violent crimes however, that number shoots up to 97%.
Whether sheriff’s offices will cooperate with the Department of Justice and turn over their inmate data remains to be seen. If they do not cooperate, the DOJ said it will “pursue all available means” to get the information, including subpoenas or “other compulsory process (sic).”
