Sheriff's Office and ACLU Reach Agreement on Detention of Undocumented Immigrants

Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California reached an agreement Wednesday that will limit the Sheriff’s Office collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a move advocates are lauding as an important step to protecting undocumented immigrants from deportation if stopped for driving without a license or other minor traffic offenses.

The settlement comes three years after the ACLU of Northern California filed a suit on behalf of three Sonoma County residents and Committee for Immigrant Rights of Sonoma County, a local community organization against the Sherriff’s Office.

The suit argued that sheriffs deputies assisted ICE agents in stopping and searching people who appeared Latino, interrogated them about their immigration status, and detained them in the county jail even after they posted bail. The latter was done using so-caled detainers, documents ICE issued for suspected civil immigration violations, even if there were not criminal charges filed. 

According to a , more than 50 percent of people arrested by federal immigration officials in Sonoma County had never been charged with any crime. (In other words, their only crime was being in the U.S. illegally.)

Under the new agreement, the Sheriff’s Office will not volunteer information to federal immigration officials about people at the county jail, if they are there solely due to traffic infractions or driving without a license. 

They will also post a notice in jail – in English and Spanish –informing detained immigrants of their rights under federal law.  The ACLU had argued that the detainers violated immigrants’ basic civil rights.

“The immigrant community in Sonoma County suffered under the old policies and practices,” said Richard Coshnear, a Santa Rosa immigration attorney and member of Committee for Immigrant Rights of Sonoma County, in a statement on the ACLU’s website. 

“We look forward to working with Sheriff (Steve) Freitas and other county officials to further limit immigration consequences from interactions with county agencies and to lift the burden of federal immigration enforcement from the shoulders of county employees. Sonoma County is not responsible for our nation’s flawed immigration policy, and it should not waste limited resources targeting hardworking community members.”

Sheriff Freitas told Patch that his office is already following all of the guidelines specified in the suit but will update some language on the signs notifying immigrants of their rights.

He has also said that he is willing to consider accepting identification cards issued by foreign consulates as valid proof of identification. Currently, if someone can't present U.S.-issued identification, they are assumed to be illegal and their name run in a national database, which immigration advocates say results in getting a detainer hold.

Under the terms of the new agreement, Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputies will continue to work with federal immigration officials to detain or arrest people who are suspected of criminal activity or who are thought to pose an imminent threat to public safety.