OAKLAND — The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office shared information about jail inmates with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement nearly 1,000 times last year, Sheriff Greg Ahern said during a public forum Monday.

Immigration officials sought access to information about inmates at the Santa Rita and Glenn Dyer jails 966 times last year and detained 386 inmates upon their release, the sheriff said at a community forum hosted by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

The sheriff’s office has previously come under fire for its decision to publicly disclose the release dates of inmates from county jails, which immigrant rights advocates said would help ICE detain undocumented immigrants. The Sheriff’s Office has said the release dates aren’t meant to help ICE detain people.

Monday’s forum was required under the Truth Act, a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016, and focused on information the sheriff’s office provided last year to ICE. Under the Truth Act, jurisdictions where local law enforcement has given ICE access to an individual must hold at least one public forum the following year.

Ahern stressed that ICE could have submitted several inquiries for the same individual last year and said requests to access information have dropped significantly under SB 54, the state sanctuary law, which prohibits law enforcement officials in many instances from cooperating with ICE.

So far this year, ICE agents have taken 86 individuals into custody after their release compared with 386 last year and 165 in 2016. Ahern said people taken into custody by ICE are generally violent felons convicted of rape, murder and sexual assault, among other crimes.

“ICE no longer comes into our facility on a daily basis, or hardly into our facility,” Ahern said. “It’s just ineffective for them to show up at the jail.”

But many forum attendees wondered why the sheriff continues to cooperate with ICE at all and said it promotes racist policies that largely target Latino immigrants. Ahern didn’t elaborate Monday on why the Sheriff’s Office continues to collaborate with the agency while other jurisdictions have stopped doing so. Santa Clara County has said it has a policy of not cooperating with ICE agents. Earlier this year, ICE agents were “mistakenly” allowed to interview four inmates, but did not detain them, said the sheriff, who added that the incident was an oversight.

Of the 966 inquiries ICE made in Alameda County last year, 773 were for access to information on Latino men, Ahern said. He declined to speculate why the number was so high compared to other ethnic groups but said, “For the most part, ICE in this area has focused on Hispanics.”

The department grant’s access to ICE in the following cases, according to Ahern: responding to an ICE hold, detainer or transfer; providing advance notice to ICE that an inmate will be released; providig ICE with non-public information such as release dates and home and work addresses; allowing ICE to interview an individual or providing ICE with dates on probation and parole check-ins. Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith has said her agency does not accept ICE holds or allow agents access to the jails.

Oakland resident Yadira Sanchez said she was “appalled and concerned” by Ahern’s collaboration with ICE.

“Why are we allowing Sheriff Ahern so much power?” said Sanchez, an activist with the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance. “It’s clear today that our community doesn’t feel safe when we know ICE is roaming in the jails.”

Oakland organizer David Brazil called Ahern’s presentation “deeply disingenuous” and questioned his motives.

“It’s a racist instrument,” he said. “That’s why people are calling for the abolishment of ICE.”

The Board of Supervisors said the forum was meant to give them clarity on whether the sheriff department’s relationship with ICE is effective and whether they should explore other options.