Sheriff transfer of immigrants to ICE doubled, Fresno report says. Here’s what we know
The number of people transferred by the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office to immigration officers more than doubled in 2023 over the previous year, according to numbers presented on Tuesday.
Sheriff John Zanoni said deputies transferred 39 people during 2023, when his office received a total of 204 holds requested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly called ICE. There were 25,810 bookings in all of last year.
There were 18 transfers to ICE in 2022, according to last year’s report to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
Zanoni said no interviews by ICE were conducted within any sheriff’s office facilities in 2023, but the Sheriff’s Office has drawn scrutiny in recent years by critics who say law enforcement officials have reported misleading numbers.
Zanoni stressed 13 of the 39 people transferred were accused of felonies, including sex crimes and drug offenses. Thirty of the alleged crimes were against people, his report said.
“That totals the 39 that were turned over to make our community safer,” Zanoni said Tuesday as he spoke to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
County law enforcement agencies across the state have been required since 2018 to annually report how they interact with ICE under the TRUTH Act.
Critics of the sheriff’s department argued the Fresno County law enforcement agency has not been forthcoming with all of its dealings with ICE.
The Sheriff’s Office has failed to respond to requests in a timely manner from the ACLU of Northern California, according to Maria Romani, director of that branch of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Program.
The ACLU has waited for three years for records it requested from the Sheriff’s Office in March 2021, Romani said.
“This lack of complete transparency is unacceptable,” she said. “The community deserves to know the full scope of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office’s interactions with ICE to ensure that it is complying with the state sanctuary law.”
The sheriff’s office should be responding promptly to records request, according to Romani, as well as reporting how many emails it exchanged with ICE, any changes the office has made to its policies around the sanctuary law and the amount of money allocated to immigration enforcement.
Other San Joaquin Valley counties last reported fewer transfers to ICE than Fresno County.
Kern reported one transfer to ICE in 2022, while Tulare and Kings each reported six. Madera, Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties all reported zero transfers in 2022.
It has been common for San Joaquin Valley sheriff’s offices to under-report the number of transfers to ICE, according to a report by the ACLU of Northern California in 2022.
More than 1,000 immigrants in the San Joaquin Valley have been transferred to ICE since state law has prohibited local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agents.
Controversy on past reported ICE transfers
Former Sheriff Margaret Mims said her office transferred 44 people to ICE in 2021 and 47 in 2020, which was a significant increase in the numbers previously reported to the public and to the California Attorney General’s Office.
The higher numbers followed accusations that law enforcement around the Valley had been under-reporting their interactions with ICE.
Officials with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said they transferred four people to federal immigration officials in 2018. A Fresno Bee story later revealed figures from ICE showed agents arrested more than 100 at Fresno County Jail.
Another Fresno Bee story found the Sheriff’s Office allowed federal immigration agents to enter a secure room at the county jail to make arrests, which were not reported as transfers.
