Sheriff: 'We don't care about immigration status'

Designating Sonoma County a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants would not change current policy, Sonoma County Sheriff Bill Cogbill said Sunday.

“We don’t care about their immigration status, and we’re prohibited from asking about it,” Cogbill said.

Protocol also prohibits law enforcement from assisting federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement, or ICE, agents during immigration raids that don’t involve criminal investigations, he said.

Cogbill’s comments came in reaction to statements made by Pam Torliatt, Petaluma mayor and south county board of supervisors candidate. She said last week that she would support a sanctuary policy and called current enforcement of immigration law “a troublesome issue.”

Cogbill, who has endorsed Torliatt’s opponent, was sharply critical of the statements, saying, “Local law enforcement doesn’t care about immigration status. We want to be able to solve crimes and protect the community.

The sheriff said his deputies stopped aiding federal agents during immigration sweeps at least two decades ago, in part because court rulings at the time found local law enforcement doesn’t have the authority to uphold federal immigration laws.

“If they’re afraid to come forward because they’re afraid we’ll contact ICE, that’s the last thing we want.”

Torliatt did not return repeated calls for comment placed Sunday. She won 38.9 percent of the primary vote and faces fellow Petaluma City Council member and architect David Rabbitt in the November election.

Her support of a sanctuary policy came to light Oct. 2 at a Latino Community Conference that she and Rabbitt attended.

Cogbill raised concerns that a news story in Saturday’s Press Democrat about Torliatt’s stance on the issue incorrectly implied that the sheriff’s office aids in the deportation of law-abiding undocumented residents.

“That’s not our practice. That’s not our policy,” Cogbill said.

The county’s appointed Human Rights Commission earlier this year adopted a draft resolution stating that “county resources, including human resources, technology, facilities, equipment and funds, shall not be used in assisting in the enforcement of Federal immigration law.”

The commission drafted its resolution in response to criticism about local authorities’ involvement in federal immigration enforcement, Chairwoman Judy Rice said.

After getting feedback from the sheriff’s office, the commission requested statistics on local law enforcement contacts with Latino residents and is reviewing arrest records, affidavits, personal accounts given to the commission and other documents, including a 2007-08 grand jury evaluation of the sheriff’s office.

That report found that “the Sonoma County law enforcement agencies and the District Attorney have adopted policies to isolate themselves from immigration law enforcement.”

“Your local cop is truly not interested in the deportation of people who are not breaking local laws,” the report said.

The commission will wait to present its findings to the board of supervisors until they do further research, Rice said.

“This resolution wasn’t a final step in a process,” she said. “It was the very first step to open an initial dialogue, to look at anecdotal information we received.”

Even if the board later adopts a sanctuary resolution, it wouldn’t have legal authority over sheriff’s office operations or how the sheriff upholds the law, Cogbill said.

“While the board has budgetary authority over this office, it does not (have it) over operational issues,” Cogbill said.

“We used to cooperate with (immigration agents), but that was 25 years ago,” he said.

The Sonoma County Law Enforcement Chief’s Association collaborated soon after to adopt a similar policy for all 13 of the county’s law enforcement jurisdictions, he said.

However, local immigrant-rights groups protested last spring after the county jail began electronically sending all inmate fingerprints to ICE databases when they’re booked.

The county jail had no choice about whether it would participate in the program, Cogbill said. ICE authorities informed his office of the new biometric fingerprinting program, which is automated through a computer program and doesn’t involve local staff, he said.

Source - http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101010/articles/101019976&tc=yahoo