San Diego sheriff defies new policy to limit cooperation with immigration officials

[December 11, 2024]  By ELLIOT SPAGAT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The sheriff of the nation’s fifth-largest county on Tuesday defied a new policy to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, setting up a showdown over a new obstacle to President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans.

Earlier Tuesday, San Diego County supervisors voted to prohibit its sheriff's department from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the federal agency's enforcement of civil immigration laws, including those that allow for deportations. California law generally prohibits cooperation but makes exceptions for those convicted of certain violent crimes.

“We will not allow our local resources to be used for actions that separate families, harm community trust, or divert critical local resources away from addressing our most pressing challenges,” said Nora Vargas, who joined two other Democrats on the board of supervisors to approve the policy.

Shortly after, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said the board does not set set policy for the sheriff, who, like the supervisors, is an elected official. She said she wouldn't honor the new policy.

“Current state law strikes the right balance between limiting local law enforcement's cooperation with immigration authorities, ensuring public safety, and building community trust,” said Martinez, whose office is nonpartisan but has identified as Democrat.

San Diego County, with 3.3 million residents and its location on the U.S. border with Mexico, is one of the more prominent local governments to ramp up protections for people in the country illegally. At the same time, some states and counties are gearing up to support Trump’s deportation efforts.

ICE has limited resources to carry out the mass deportations that Trump wants. For that reason, it will rely heavily on sheriffs to notify it of people in their custody and hold them temporarily, if asked, to allow federal officials time to arrest them on immigration charges.

People hold signs during a San Diego County board of supervisors meeting Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, has singled out San Diego as a place where the incoming administration's plans are complicated by “sanctuary” laws, a loose term for state and local governments that restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities. He said Sunday on Fox News Channel that that laws denying ICE access to county jails “put the community at risk.” In contrast to San Diego, Homan plans to meet with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has expressed interest in collaborating.

The policy brings San Diego in line with seven other counties in California, including Los Angeles, the nation's largest, which recently adopted a policy that goes beyond state law, Vargas said.

Jim Desmond, the lone dissenter, said it will protect people convicted of violent crimes, recounting the shooting death of 32-year-old Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015 and other high-profile attacks committed by people in the country illegally.

“These tragedies are preventable but sanctuary laws allow them to happen by allowing illegal criminals back into our communities instead of into the hands of ICE, said Desmond, a Republican.

Vargas said “a loophole” in state law that allows sheriffs to work with ICE under limited circumstances for people convicted of violent crimes had resulted in the county transferring 100 to 200 people a year to immigration authorities. ICE will now need a judge’s order to get help from the county.

Before the vote, Martinez, who has largely avoided discussing immigration policies, took issue with Vargas' use of “loophole” to describe state law. She noted California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has blocked efforts to further restrict cooperation with ICE.

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