Jail to honor immigration detainers
The Oklahoma County jail' s new administrative team plans to honor immigration detainer requests by holding some inmates up to an additional 48 hours past their scheduled release, reversing along-standing policy previously enforced by the county sheriff's office.
Detainer requests are issued by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to indicate to local jails that ICE wants an inmate to be held up to two additional days after their scheduled release if it is believed that person may have violated immigration law.
Whether law enforcemen to ff ice rs are legally able to honor the requests without violating constitutional rights of individuals has been hotly debated, and several federal judges have deemed the detainers unconstitutional.
Jail administrator Greg Williams, who took over management of the county jail July 1 through the Oklahoma County Jail Trust, said he is interested in improving communication between jail staff and ICE.
“I think it'd be much better to work with (ICE) and say ` Do you want this person, or do you not want them?'”
Williams said .“If you do want them, then we can hold them for up to 48 hours.”
For several years, ICE officers have worked inside the county jail to check for citizenship status when someone is booked in.
If ICE wants to continue investigating that person, officers may issue a “hold” or “detainer” requesting jail staff keep these inmates for additional time so ICE can pick them up and transport
them to other holding facilities.
Williams also said office space inside the jail will continue to be provided to ICE agents despite public calls over the last year to remove them.
Recent protest sat the county have focused on whether officials will give over 75% of t he county's federal COVID- 1 9 relief
money to the jail, but several demonstrators have expressed frustration with the jail's ICE protocols, as well.
Individuals are booked inside the jail before they are convicted of a crime, advocates say, so even if they are found to be innocent, they are now likely involved with ICE.
And data provided to The Oklahoman last year showed that many individuals with ICE detainer requests had municipal charges, which the Oklahoma City Police Department said can range from unpaid tickets to failure to appear at a court hearing to assault.
Under Sheriff P.D. Taylor, the jail provided office space for ICE, but he did not honor the 48-hour detainer requests because of legal concerns.
“If ICE is not there right when that person has finished being processed out of the jail, which usually takes about six hours, then they walk free,” sheriff's office spokesperson Mark Myers told The Oklahoman last summer.
A state law maker filed a bill this year that would have required local jails to comply with detainer requests, but the bill died during the legislative session, which ended early because of COVID-19.
ICE detainers were a continuous issue for the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office last year. Last summer, community advocates pushed for the removal of the two ICE officers who worked inside the county jail.
Conversely, though the sheriff's office said it works closely with ICE by allowing those officers 24/7 access to the jail, many were frustrated that the jail did not hold inmates for the additional 48 hours.
The topic became such an issue that the Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office weighed in, saying that honoring ICE detainers could cause the county to be liable for “unlawful detention.”
Williams said the trust will follow all applicable laws, adding that he is interested in any process that increases efficiency.
“I'm all about efficiencies, and if having a person here will help me get people in and get people out as efficiently as possible, then that is probably what I'm going to recommend,” he said.
ICE officers have continued to work at the jail throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, according to information provided by ICE. ICE leadership from the field office in Dallas plan to meet with the jail's new leadership team “as soon as it is feasible,” a spokesperson said.