Fresno County transferring fewer immigrants to feds, sheriff says in new report
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office says it transferred 18 individuals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2022, less than half the total handed over to ICE in 2021.
The new data was released ahead of Tuesday’s TRUTH Act forum during a Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting where the figures were presented to the public by Sheriff John Zanoni.
There were no comments from the public on Tuesday. The forum has drawn larger crowds in previous years.
In years past the sheriff’s report, like many in the region, had raised advocates’ eyebrows because of apparent underreporting.
Zanoni on Tuesday briefly read over the statistics in the report to the Board of Supervisors.
The TRUTH Act is a California law that requires local jurisdictions and law enforcement to hold an annual public forum to let the public know about ICE activities in their local communities. The law also requires local law enforcement to release statistics on whether they cooperated with ICE the previous calendar year.
According to the newly released data, the sheriff’s office had a total booking of 23,407 at the county jail in 2022. The office received 128 requests for holds from ICE. The statistics indicate there were no ICE interviews at the county jail in 2022.
Of the 18 immigrants who were transferred to federal immigration officials, 14 had committed crimes against a person, one was facing charges for a sex crime and one had committed a crime against a property, according to the statistics. Two more were facing felony drug charges.
“All those crimes were felonies,” Zanoni told the board.
Sheriff John Zanoni elaborates on felonies in report
Supervisor Nathan Magsig was the only one to pose a few questions to Zanoni.
“You’ve got 14 crimes against a person, so I would imagine that typically when law enforcement gets involved with something like that, these are, it’s more than just a fist fight. Is that fair to say?” Magsig asked.
Zanoni responded by saying many of the crimes against a person would have involved corporal injury to a spouse, a cohabitant or someone that the suspect had a relationship with.
“Those crimes in order to be charged with have to have serious bodily injury, not just a slap or red mark,” he said. “Typically a bruising or something significant.”
Regarding the drug charges, Zanoni said one suspect was in possession of methamphetamine for sale, and the other one was in possession of methamphetamine or fentanyl or some type of drug that would be a felony, in addition to being in possession of a firearm.
The sex crime involved a minor under the age of 18, he said.
More transfers to ICE in 2021, ‘20
Former Sheriff Margaret Mims said her office transferred 44 immigrants to ICE in 2021 and 47 in 2020 — marking a significant shift in the numbers previously reported to the public and to the California Attorney General’s Office since the law began to mandate the release of such data beginning with 2018 numbers.
The sheriff’s office reported having transferred four people to federal immigration officials in 2018. However, a Fresno Bee story revealed ICE’s own figures on arrests at the Fresno County jail were more than 100 for the same year. A 2018 Fresno Bee story found the sheriff’s office policy allowed federal immigration agents to enter a secure room at the county jail to make arrests.
A report by the ACLU of Northern California in 2022 found the the practice of underreporting transfers was common among sheriff’s offices in the central San Joaquin Valley. More than 1,000 immigrants in the San Joaquin Valley were transferred to ICE since state laws prohibiting local law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials went into effect.
