LA County Ignores 25,000 Detainers For Criminal Aliens After Sheriff Kicks ICE Out of Jails

Brittany M. Hughes | August 25, 2020
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California's Los Angeles County has ignored more than 25,000 requests by federal immigration authorities to turn over illegal aliens arrested for committing crimes to ICE, instead releasing them – many of them arrested for violent crimes – back into the community.

According to the Washington Examiner, LA County has refused to turn over roughly 1,400 criminal aliens each month since kicking ICE out of their local jails last year.

Now, LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva – the same sheriff who threatened local gun stores if they continued to operate during the coronavirus pandemic – said in a statement that the temporary ban he’d placed on criminal alien transfers during the COVID crisis “will now be permanent and we will no longer transfer individuals to the custody of ICE based solely on a civil immigration detainer.

“There is no greater threat to public safety than a million undocumented immigrants who are afraid to report crime, out of fear of deportation and having their families torn apart,” he said. “As the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, I am responsible for everyone’s public safety, regardless of immigration status. I will not allow an entire segment of the population to be afraid to report crimes to law enforcement and be forced, again, back into the shadows.”

This means that not only are ICE officials no longer welcome in LA County jails, where they can take custody of a criminal alien after their local criminal issues have been dealt with – now, the county won’t even notify them when an illegal alien is being released, even for the most violent and dangerous criminals.

For example, back in 2018, ICE rounded up 162 illegal aliens with criminal histories in LA and the surrounding area, including a Mexican who’d been convicted of rape and a Salvadoran man convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

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