Marin jail ICE pickup shakes up immigration forum

Images of a Latino man being handcuffed and taken away in an unmarked van after being released from Marin County Jail stirred controversy at a county forum this week.

Tuesday’s TRUTH Act forum was part of an oversight effort compelled by state law that requires local government, in which law enforcement has provided federal immigration agents access to an individual, to hold at least one such community gathering a year later.

At the session, held online due to COVID-19, Lucia Martel-Dow, director of immigration and social services at Canal Alliance, displayed screen shots from a video that she said was taken outside the jail between 7-8 p.m. Monday involving a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Martel-Dow declined to identify the person who gave her the video. On Wednesday, she said ICE released the man, an unidentified 19-year-old Contra Costa County resident who she said is undocumented, on bail. She said he had been convicted, but was unsure of the crime.

Gabriel Archer, an ICE spokesman, wrote in an email: “As a routine practice, the agency does not offer specific details related to potential enforcement operations, due to law-enforcement sensitivities and the safety and security of our personnel.”

The images showed the handcuffed man’s apparent family members or friends grouped around him as he was loaded into the van.

“I think this is appalling and shocking,” Supervisor Kate Sears said.

Watch the forum: Martel-Dow discusses images after the 19-minute mark of the video.

Eileen Fisher, a founder of Mill Valley Community Action Network, said, “This is shocking and terrible that this is happening. Sheriff (Robert) Doyle you are 100% responsible, along with all of the supervisors here.”

Supervisor Damon Connolly asked Doyle if he could shed light on the incident.

“The scene that Lucia showed us is ugly,” Doyle said. “I don’t know any of the details, but watching the video this is exactly why we didn’t want to do the releases the way you requested, supervisor.”

In August, the sheriff’s office stopped allowing ICE into the booking area of the jail to pick up prisoners upon release. The change in policy came at the request of the supervisors, Canal Alliance and other groups such as ICE Out of Marin. ICE Out of Marin and several other advocacy groups boycotted Tuesday’s meeting.

Martel-Dow said she displayed the images not to criticize the sheriff but to educate the public regarding the practices of ICE and the importance of holding all branches of law enforcement accountable.

Under Senate Bill 54, which limits the degree to which local law enforcement may cooperate with ICE, the sheriff is still allowed to notify ICE when someone who is undocumented is released from the jail.

At the request of Canal Alliance, however, beginning in late 2018, the sheriff agreed to notify ICE only in cases where the person being released has been arrested for a serious or violent crime and is awaiting trial, or where the inmate was previously convicted of a serious or violent crime.

On Wednesday, Doyle said he believes that the man picked up by ICE was convicted and served time in Marin County Jail for false imprisonment.

“That is a serious crime so we would have notified ICE about his release,” Doyle said.

Doyle said that his deputies do not enforce immigration law and do not seek to determine the residency status of individuals whom they arrest. He said, however, when a person is booked into the jail they are fingerprinted and those prints are stored in a federal database to which ICE has access.

Using this database or other unknown sources of information, ICE periodically sends the sheriff’s office a form officially requesting the release date of certain undocumented inmates. Since the establishment of the sheriff’s new policy in 2018, the number of inmates picked up by ICE when released from the jail has dropped dramatically.

In 2018, ICE requested the release dates of 188 Marin County Jail inmates and took 75 inmates into custody. In 2019, release dates for 171 inmates were requested and 27 inmates were taken into custody. So far in 2020, ICE has requested the release dates of 51 inmates and picked up nine inmates.

Two issues that remain are whether the sheriff should continue to supply release dates of inmates who have been charged but not yet convicted of a serious or violent crime, and whether he should continue to post the release dates of prisoners online.

“I’m very very concerned, as are many, about those who are not convicted yet being transferred to ICE, regardless of their crime. They do deserve their day in court,” said Janet Lipsey, a member of the Congregation Rodef Sholom’s immigrants’ rights team.

Connolly asked Doyle if he had given any thought to changing his position on this policy.

“No,” Doyle said. “I believe SB 54 allows me to do that. The 27 people ICE picked up in Marin last year were arrested 102 times in Marin. To say that is not a threat to public safety is not true.”

Doyle said the nine Marin inmates that ICE took into custody in 2020 had been arrested 40 times, cumulatively. He said six of them had been convicted of a serious or violent crime, and three were charged with felony domestic violence and awaiting trial.

Doyle also said he has no plans to stop posting release dates online.

“ICE knows who is in the jail,” he said. “And it’s not my job to make it difficult for ICE to find people who are undocumented.”