Sheriff knocked at forum on migrant detainees

The fate of undocumented immigrants who have been arrested for a serious or violent crime but not convicted dominated the discussion during a Marin TRUTH Act forum last week.

The Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds Act, signed into law in 2016, requires local governments where law enforcement has provided federal immigration agents access to suspects to hold an annual forum to receive public comment.

Since 2018, Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle has significantly scaled back his cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Beginning in August, the sheriff stopped allowing ICE agents into the secure area of the jail to take inmates into custody.

Doyle said the only assistance his department provides to ICE, when asked, is to notify it of the release date of Marin inmates who have been convicted of serious or violent crimes or have open charges involving serious or violent crimes.

Doyle said that in 2019 ICE requested release information for 171 Marin inmates but his department complied in only 24 cases. Last year, he said, ICE made 95 requests and his department supplied the agency with release information for 14 inmates; in six of those 14 instances, the inmates had been arrested but not convicted.

There was a tense exchange early in the meeting between Doyle and Supervisor Damon Connolly when Connolly suggested that the sheriff was denying the inmates due process by facilitating their transfer to ICE.

“If the individual presents a danger, aren’t there ways of addressing that pending trial?” Connolly asked.

“I know what you’re getting at, but my position is I report people who have open charges for serious or violent crimes to ICE,” Dolye said. “I happen to think it is a public safety issue.”

Other supervisors chimed in on this issue.

“I don’t feel comfortable with turning someone over to ICE who has open charges and hasn’t been convicted,” Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said. “They’re only guilty of being an illegal immigrant at that point.”

Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters said, “I would be in favor of changing our open-charge policy.”

Far fewer members of the public commented during the forum than in past years and no representatives from the Latino community spoke.

Several speakers, however, echoed the supervisors’ concern about turning over of inmates prior to conviction.

“This is essentially having them do double the punishment and adding a level of additional trauma,” Kalyani Ryaru said. “This is not OK. I am demanding formal sheriff oversight and I am demanding a stop of cooperation with ICE.”

“In our system, it is supposedly innocent until proven guilty, but Sheriff Doyle is deciding they are guilty already. There is no due process at all,” Joan Kruckewitt said.

Lisa Bennett, who spoke for ICE Out of Marin, said, “We need oversight. We need the Vision Act. These are the demands of Ice Out of Marin.”

The Vision Act, or Assembly Bill 937, was tabled in September because of a lack of support but will be taken up again by the Legislature in January. It would prohibit law enforcement agencies from notifying federal immigration authorities of inmate release dates or facilitating inmate transfers in all cases.

The sheriff wasn’t without defenders.

“It seems to me the sheriff is handling this in a reasonable and prudent fashion,” James Holmes of Larkspur said, “and I suspect a lot of other folks would agree.”

Holmes said undocumented immigrants “are here in violation of law.”

“If they entangle themselves in the judicial system, there is a very good question as to whether our already overstressed and overtaxed judicial system should be taxed further to deal with them,” he said.

Several speakers urged the supervisors to use the powers given to them by Assembly Bill 1185 to establish a civilian oversight board to oversee the sheriff’s office.

“On your own, you can create a civilian oversight board with subpoena power to help keep the sheriff in line,” said Kevin Morrison, who announced in October that he will run in the June election to replace Supervisor Judy Arnold, who is retiring.

The supervisors are expected to decide in January whether they will create such an entity. Several said Tuesday that they support doing so.

Under the law, such a board would lack the power to tell the sheriff how to discharge his investigative and prosecutorial duties. It would be empowered only to issue reports and nonbinding recommendations.