Marin County sheriff faces persistent criticism on ICE notifications

Marin County supervisors and some members of the public continue to press Sheriff Jamie Scardina to further scale back his cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds Act, or TRUTH Act, signed into law in 2016, requires local governments where law enforcement has provided federal immigration agents access to suspects to hold an annual forum to receive public comment.

The Marin County Sheriff’s Office has significantly scaled back its involvement with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) since 2018. Beginning in August 2020, the sheriff’s office stopped allowing ICE agents into the secure area of the jail to take inmates into custody.

The only assistance the sheriff’s office provides to ICE is to notify it of the release dates of Marin inmates who have been convicted of serious or violent crimes or who have open charges involving serious or violent crimes.

At Tuesday’s meeting, however, Supervisors Mary Sackett and Dennis Rodoni both objected to the sheriff’s practice of notifying ICE about inmates who haven’t yet been convicted of a serious or violent crime.

“I do have a concern, frankly, about those who are arrested but not convicted,” Sackett said.

Rodoni said, “I do think there’s a level of uncomfortableness among all of us about someone not being convicted and yet being subject to maybe a harsh deportation.”

For the second year running, forum attendance was light. Just seven members of the public spoke. Earlier TRUTH forums attracted large audiences.

Several members of the public raised the same issue as the supervisors.

“Unless a person has gone through due process and has actually been convicted, there is no reason to communicate with ICE about that person,” said Johnson Reynolds of San Rafael.

Lisa Bennett, who wore a T-shirt she had made that read, “persistent critic of the Marin County Sheriff,” asserted that some members of the Marin public were no longer attending TRUTH forums because they have lost hope of getting the sheriff to change his policy.

“It is the definition of insanity to continue to say the same thing over and over again and expect a different result,” Bennett told supervisors. “At some point, you’ll be establishing a sheriff’s oversight commission which will have the authority to review the sheriff’s policies and recommend changes.”

While most commenters urged the county to maintain a hands-off policy regarding undocumented residents, James Holmes of Larkspur said, “We need more and better data to understand the extent to which illegals contribute to crime and murder.”

“We should compile statistics about what percentage of all arrestees are illegal, what percentage of arrested illegals are charged with crimes, and what percentage of charged illegals are convicted or plead guilty,” Holmes said.

Heidi Merchen of Novato said, “No human is illegal, that dehumanizes people, and we don’t want to do that to anyone.”

But in an email to supervisors prior to the meeting, Michael Hartnett wrote, “First of all, please use clear language to reflect reality. Someone who enters or resides in the country without authorization from the U.S. government is an illegal immigrant or alien.”

Scardina told supervisors that his office received 82 requests for information regarding inmates in the county jail in 2023 and responded to just 13 of those. That compares to 89 requests for information from ICE in 2022 and 33 responses.

Scardina said his office only supplies ICE with information about people who have been arrested for a crime that is defined by Senate Bill 54 as being serious or violent.

The sheriff said the 13 people about whom his office supplied information to ICE faced charges of felony driving under the influence; theft; burglary; narcotic sales; evading arrest; threat to terrorize; false imprisonment; grant theft; domestic violence; robbery; assault with a deadly weapon; and sexual assault involving sodomy.

Seven of the 13 were repeat offenders. One inmate had been arrested 18 times; another had been arrested 12 times. Scardina said one of the first-time inmates was booked for possession of 2 kilos of fentanyl.

“When you break it down to 2 milligrams as a lethal dosage of fentanyl, that’s over a million lethal doses that we took off the streets in Marin County,” Scardina said. “So I don’t feel bad notifying ICE of that individual’s being released back into the community.”

Regarding the issue of responding to ICE requests before inmates are convicted, Scardina said, “What I would say to that is their case is not adjudicated yet. Now, if an individual was found not guilty or not held to answer during their case, then we would not notify ICE of their being released.”