Open Letter to Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff: Stop Santa Clara Jails From Becoming ICE Traps

Stop Santa Clara Jails From Becoming ICE Traps

Stop the Santa Clara County Sheriff from Communicating with ICE to Detain Community Members at the Jails

The Santa Clara County Sheriff has confirmed that it has communicated with ICE to give them information regarding the release time of individuals in order to make ICE detentions as easy and efficient as possible. In the course of three weeks, they have facilitated four people being detained by ICE at the Elmwood Jail facility.

The Sheriff’s Office states that ICE is getting release dates from publicly accessible websites. ICE agents then call or go to the jail facilities on the release date and ask what time that person is being released. The Sheriff staff then gives ICE the exact time of release. Whether the Sheriff staff is also giving ICE information to identify the targeted person is unclear. After being given the precise time of the person’s release by the Sheriff, ICE agents then know when to be there to initiate the detention, and take the person immediately from their release from jail.

The Santa Clara County ICE detainer policy (3.54 Cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement) states that the County is prohibited from, “expending County time or resources responding to ICE inquiries or communicating with ICE regarding individuals’

incarceration status or release dates.” We believe the Sheriff’s communication with ICE is a

violation of the County ICE detainer policy.

At a time of unprecedented increased ICE aggression, regardless of whether the Sheriff’s

actions were in violation of existing policy or not - Santa Clara County must act to protect

community members from ICE attacks. If the County acquiesces to ICE enforcement at the jail, and willingly gives information to ICE to make a detention frictionless - they are making any incarceration for immigrant community members a potential precursor to ICE detention. With the current actions by the Sheriffs, the jails are now ICE traps.

We call on the County to stop this process of making ICE enforcement as easy as possible at

the County jails. Protecting our immigrant communities from ICE detention and deportation is a proudly held charge from our County leadership - and that moral and urgent mandate must also apply to those who have been incarcerated.

Organizational Support:

AACI

Afro UPRIS (Black Democratic club of Santa Clara County)

African American Community Service Agency

Amigos de Guadalupe Center for Justice and Empowerment

Asian Law Alliance

CAIR San Francisco Bay Area

Carry the Vision

Coalition for Justice and Accountability

Community Solutions

Dependency Advocacy Center

Family Supportive Housing

Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY)

Indivisible Sol Sun SJ

Justice At Last

Latinas Contra Cancer

La Raza RoundTable de California

MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana

MAiZ San Jose

NAACP

National Compadres Network

Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence

Pangea Legal Services

Peninsula Family Service

Race Equity Action Leadership (REAL) Coalition

Razing the Bar

Sacred Heart Community Service

San Jose Nikkei Resisters

San Jose Peace & Justice Center

San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP

Santa Clara County Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California

SCC ACLU

SCC Single Payer Health Care Coalition

School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza

Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN)

Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Clara County/ SURJ

SOMOS Mayfair

Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits

Silicon Valley De-Bug

Solidarity and Unity Network

South Bay Progressive Alliance

Working Partnerships USA

VAO | Vietnamese American Organization

Vietnamese American Roundtable

YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley