Declined Detainer Report | Fiscal Year 2018, Second Quarter

Overview

President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order No. 13768, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, and the Department of Homeland Security’s implementation memorandum, Enforcement of the Immigration Laws to Serve the National Interest, direct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide the public with information about declined detainers. In order to increase transparency surrounding the immigration enforcement process, ICE will produce the Declined Detainer Report on a quarterly basis, beginning in the second quarter of Fiscal Year (FY) 2018. The report will highlight cases where ICE issued a detainer, the detainer was declined, and the alien subsequently committed a crime ¹ after being released from state or local custody. Because ICE is often not alerted by uncooperative jurisdictions when a detainer has been declined, and because ICE may only learn of the detainer having been declined after an alien is arrested for a subsequent offense, the cases contained in this report are examples of a broader public safety issue and are not exhaustive.

Cooperation between ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies is critical to the effort to identify and arrest removable aliens and defend the nation’s security. Every day, ICE places detainers on individuals who the agency has probable cause to believe are aliens who are removable from the United States and are currently in federal, state, and local law enforcement agency custody.

In response to such a detainer, cooperative law enforcement agencies will notify ICE as early as practicable (at least 48 hours, if possible) before an alien is released from the law enforcement agency’s custody. In addition, cooperating agencies will also maintain custody of the alien for a period not to exceed 48 hours beyond the time when he/she would otherwise have been released to allow ICE to assume custody. Upon taking custody, ICE is able to initiate removal proceedings and return the alien to his/her country of origin once a final order of removal has been issued by an immigration judge. Additionally, in cases where the alien has reentered the United States illegally after having been removed, ICE will reinstate the prior order of removal, and remove the alien.

While many jurisdictions across the country cooperate with ICE’s detainers and work closely with the agency to ensure the safety of local communities, in some cases, state or local laws, ordinances, or policies restrict or prohibit cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. Additionally, some jurisdictions willfully decline to honor ICE detainers and refuse to timely notify ICE of an alien’s release, and may do so even when an alien has a criminal record. Unfortunately, a number of aliens who have been released under these circumstances have gone on to commit additional crimes, including violent felonies. ICE maintains that most of these crimes could have been prevented if ICE had been able to assume custody of these aliens and remove them from the country in accordance with federal immigration laws.

In addition to the risk that criminal aliens will reoffend and create additional victims, when jurisdictions fail to honor ICE detainers, ICE must conduct at-large operations within the community to locate these aliens. At-large enforcement actions can carry greater safety risks when compared to taking an alien into custody in the secure and controlled environment of a jail where, for example, individuals have been screened for weapons. Ultimately, a jurisdiction’s decision to ignore ICE detainers increases the need for ICE’s presence in communities and requires additional resources to locate and arrest removable aliens. This consumes significant investigative hours and strategic operational planning, which may or may not be successful.

The Declined Detainer Report highlights cases in which detainers have not been honored and aliens have subsequently been re-arrested or, to the best of ICE’s knowledge, remain at large, demonstrating the critical public safety threat posed by non-cooperation. ² Each report will focus on jurisdictions with policies that can result in the release of potentially dangerous aliens.

This iteration of the Declined Detainer Report focuses on the state of California, in which ICE recently completed three large-scale operations targeting criminal aliens at large in the community, many of whom had passed through the state’s criminal justice system and were not transferred to ICE upon completion of that process.

Section I: FY 2018, Second Quarter – Detainers Issued and Declined between January 1, 2018 and March 31, 2018