Marin might eschew federal money linked to migrant detainees

Marin County’s top administrator said Tuesday he will recommend the Board of Supervisors forgo controversial federal grant money linked to crime data reporting on immigrants.

County Executive Derek Johnson announced the plan as activists turned out at the supervisors’ weekly meeting. They called on the board to stop accepting the funds from the program, which reimburses cities and counties for the incarceration of “undocumented criminal aliens.”

The Marin County Sheriff’s Office received $461,446 in fiscal year 2022, $416,677 in fiscal year 2023 and $338,136 in fiscal year 2024 by participating in the program.

“I want to note this morning that the budget that I’m preparing and will be presenting to the Board of Supervisors does not include State Criminal Alien Assistance Program funding,” Johnson said as the meeting began.

A sizable group of Marin residents has been calling for change since October, and opposition to the grant program has grown significantly since two fatal shootings by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis last month.

The grant program applies to immigrants who have at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions and have been jailed for at least four consecutive days. Any state or locality may apply for the funds. In fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024, the federal government paid more than $554 million to grant recipients across the nation.

The program was established by Congress in 1994, the same year that California Gov. Pete Wilson sued the federal government for reimbursement of $377 million that the state would spend that year on jailing 17,000 undocumented immigrants.

Applicants must submit the inmate’s name, date of birth, foreign country of origin, date of incarceration and date of release. Applicants are also given the option of submitting an appendix that includes the inmate’s home and work addresses.

“By participating in SCAAP, our county sheriff is directly helping ICE to build a list of local undocumented immigrants that it can target for deportation,” Curt Ries, an organizer with Marin Democratic Socialists of America, said in a statement.

Marin County Sheriff Jamie Scardina, however, has said that the program is administered by the Department of Justice and has nothing to do with immigration enforcement.

As of October, 35 other counties and the California Department of Corrections were participating. Some other jurisdictions, however, are taking a second look. Santa Cruz County decided to withdraw from the program in August.

Speaking at the supervisors’ meeting on Jan. 27, Johnson said the program “does not authorize cooperation with ICE operations and does not require nor does it result in real-time reporting or notification for immigration purposes.”

On Tuesday, however, Johnson said he decided the county should go without the revenue after extensive conversations with “stakeholders, community members and peer counties that share Marin County’s commitment to equity and inclusion.”

In an email, Scardina said Johnson had consulted him regarding the decision.

“I have been reassured that the county will make our budget whole with this lost revenue,” Scardina said. “I appreciate the Board’s willingness to do that.”

In addition to giving up the federal grant money, Johnson said, “I also want to be clear that our budget does and will include a recommendation to continue our support for immigrant communities consistent with the recommendations that we provided last year.”

Marin supervisors allocated $500,000 in the county’s current budget to support immigrants. The bulk of the money, $240,000, was provided for legal services. Another $185,000 was earmarked for support services, mainly rental assistance, and $75,000 went to the Marin Rapid Response Network, which operates a 24-hour hotline for people to report raids by federal immigration agents.

A large contingent of Marin residents attended the Jan. 20 meeting to call on the supervisors to end participation in the program after Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. A large group turned out again for Tuesday’s meeting.

“I’m going to take it on faith that Derek’s recommendation to forgo SCAAP funding in the budget will be the end of the sheriff’s collaboration with ICE,” said activist Patty Hoyt of Novato. “I very much appreciate that our concerns for our neighbors were finally heard.”

However, Krissa Klein of San Rafael said, “We have a gang of criminals who are terrorizing our nation. These people are murdering, torturing and maiming our neighbors. I don’t trust either you or our law enforcement organizations to protect us. I want to hear a firm commitment to actually stand against ICE.”

Amy Ewing said, “We’re appreciative that the sheriff does not accept money from ICE, but he also needs to protect us from ICE. What we really need to do is have the sheriff melt ICE away.”

In addition to ending participation, anti-ICE organizers are calling for the sheriff to end the practice of posting the names, charges and release dates online of detainees in the county jail.

“I will not stop putting public information on our website when it comes to release dates,” Scardina wrote in an email.

Scardina’s predecessor, Robert Doyle, declined the same request during his tenure. Doyle said he was required by law to release public information and that posting release information on the website was a community service, both for the friends and family of people who were incarcerated, as well as for anyone the prisoner may have victimized.