A federal judge in Oregon recently ruled a detention facility had violated a woman’s constitutional rights by holding her past her release date for no other reason than her immigration status.
That, according to sources, is the reason more and more California jails are veering away from the 48-hour ICE holds. They’re afraid honoring them could expose detention centers to unwanted liability.
Orange County Jails join the growing list of 140 counties and counting in California that have stopped putting ICE holds on inmates. County jails throughout California have been coming forward, one by one, saying they will no longer honor ICE holds.
Although immigrant rights groups are applauding the decision as a civil rights victory, other say local sheriff’s departments are likely more motivated by the law.
San Diego County said they’re still doing their best to work alongside ICE and since they can’t hold these inmates, they are giving federal agencies a heads up about their release. If they want to come get them when they’re being released from jail, we will turn them over to their custody. ICE said they’ve been responsive when they get these types of phone calls.
The federal ruling has seemingly opened the proverbial floodgates of change, and since jails can’t hold immigrants past their release date if they don’t have probable cause, more counties are expected to follow.
And although immigrant rights groups are thrilled with this change, they’re still concerned that the jails are calling ICE to tip them off when undocumented persons are scheduled to get out. Placing that call isn’t required under the law, they said, it’s a policy thing and they don’t feel police or sheriff’s deputies should involve themselves with deportation matters.
San Diego County jails stopped their immigration hold policy in May 2014.
But it has created a potential headache for Bail Bond Company’s. If an inmate is eligible to post bail, without knowledge of a possible ICE hold, a bond can be posted to which the inmate is released from the custody of the jail, but in to the custody of ICE. This puts the bonding company in a bad position because, in San Diego County, once a bail bond is posted at the jail, they will not let the bondsman pull the bond even if it discovered the inmate will be deported.
So naturally whoever paid for the bond will expect their money back because the inmate was not released from custody, so it would seem. The fact that the inmate was technically released from custody on bond would not make someone that just paid $2,500.00 very satisfied or happy.
Then there is the issue of the inmate’s scheduled court appearance date. The State is going to expect them to be in court on the date and time set when they were released from custody on bond. But the Federal Government has ordered them to not return and if they do come back, they will be put in prison.
So technically the Feds are telling the State their case against the inmate isn’t important. Then, because the Fed’s don’t communicate with the State about who they deport, when the defendant doesn’t appear in court when ordered, the Court will forfeit the bail bond .
That makes it a financial burden as it eventually falls back on the bail bond company. The bail bond company will then have to motion the court and prove that the defendant couldn’t make it to court because of their ICE deportation.
The problem with this general idea is that even though the courts said it is not OK for jails to hold people beyond their release – they never said the jails had to inform the bail bond company’s or the undocumented immigrants that they were about to be turned over to the feds.