One summer night in 1994, Salesh Prasad was angry. He believed Thomas Ortiz had broken his car windows, so in retaliation, Prasad shot Ortiz twice in the back of the head near a market in Modesto. The judge sentenced Prasad to at least 20 years in state prison.

In 2021, the state Parole Board released him after 26 years in prison, citing his good behavior and continued commitment to substance abuse recovery and therapy.

“Congratulations. I said thank you and started crying,” Prasad said in a phone interview.

But more than a year later, he is still not at large. This is because Prasad immigrated to the US from Fiji when he was 6 years old and although he entered the country legally, he was a lawful permanent resident ie. a green card holder, not a citizen. After his release from prison, Prasad was transferred to an immigration detention center, where he is now fighting deportation to a country he barely remembers.

His experience is hardly an isolated incident. The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department transferred 106 people from the jail to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from 2018-20. Maria Romani, a senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the sheriff’s department’s numbers may be an undercount. It’s all part of an ongoing debate across the country about the role of so-called sanctuary cities and counties, which limit ICE’s ability to deport immigrants.

On October 18, Sheriff Jeff Dirkse gave his annual presentation to the ICE Board of Supervisors. The county did not transfer anyone to ICE in 2021, he said. But this was despite 30 attempts to do so.

The law of values ​​defines the law

According to Dirkse, the low numbers have little to do with county politics. Instead, the decline in ICE transfers was in response to a 2018 state law known as the Valuables Act that affects police and sheriff cooperation with immigration authorities.

Anyone who goes to jail is fingerprinted and the prints are available to ICE. But that data set is huge, so ICE often relies on local authorities to crack potential cases. The Values ​​Act limits how law enforcement can communicate with ICE, allowing the sheriff’s department to work with ICE only if an inmate has committed certain crimes. All misdemeanors do not qualify.

Examples of common crimes that may merit both jail time and deportation include assault, possession of a weapon, crimes against children, and intent to traffic drugs. For example, a DUI would be a misdemeanor and not deportable unless another person was injured.

Since the law took effect in 2018, ICE has requested and received access to fewer people in the prison system. “It’s a waste of their time to ask people we won’t give them,” Dirkse said in an interview.

He also noted that the sheriff’s department sent 25% fewer people to jail last year than in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Romani, the ACLU attorney, questioned the sheriff’s data and said jails saw more ICE activity in 2022 than last year.

U report this springThe ACLU found that, on average, San Joaquin Valley counties transferred three times as many people to ICE in 2018-20 than they reported to the Attorney General’s Office.

She noted that the Valuables Act requires the sheriff’s department to release people from jail regardless of whether ICE shows up when they are released. The report shows that in 2018 and 2019, the Stanislaus Sheriff’s Department illegally held some immigrants in custody for extra time so that ICE could pick them up. Dirkse, who became sheriff in January 2019, says much of the department’s behavior predates his tenure.

The ACLU shared one correspondence from 2021 — year, the Sheriff’s Department said it made zero transfers. iIn the memo, the sheriff’s department asked ICE what time officers planned to arrive to pick up the man from jail.

In an interview, Dirkse noted that the correspondence does not contradict his report to the Supervisory Board. He could not comment on a specific case, but reiterated that the department coordinated with ICE last year to extradite 30 people who had committed related crimes. It’s just that the ICE officers did not show up when these people were released, he explained. “They don’t have a chance.”

The VISION of lawmakers is failing

On August 18, 2021, guards began preparing Prasad for release. He was able to change from his prison uniform to new clothes that his mother had bought for the occasion. “A pair of shoes, brand new shorts, socks, everything,” he said.

Standing in his new clothes, he waited for security to take him to the bus station, but instead an MIA officer appeared and took him into custody. He soon stripped again, this time to don a red uniform for the Golden State Annex Detention Center in McFarland. The colors indicate whether the immigrant has committed a crime. Red — for previously convicted; orange is for everyone else.

“California should not subject these community members to repeated double punishment and ignore their rehabilitation, stable reentry plans and community support simply because they are refugees or immigrants,” wrote Assemblyman Ash Carla (D-San Jose). , Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles) and Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) in introducing a new bill known as VISION Act. It would have eliminated transfers from prisons or jails to ICE in all but a handful of cases, but it failed to pass the California state senate this August.

“It’s not double jeopardy, it’s two completely different things,” Dirkse said. The first punishment is for a crime the man committed in Stanislaus County, and the second punishment is for violating immigration law, he explained. Although ICE’s actions are beyond his control, he supports deporting undocumented immigrants convicted of “heinous crimes.” Overall, he said, he supports “liberal immigration policies” combined with stronger border protection. He did not specify which immigration policy he would support.

In Prasad’s case, the first punishment was for committing murder. The second punishment was for non-citizenship. Romani and Prasad see this as an injustice and look to the VISION Act as the future.

Meanwhile, Prasad applies for humanitarian aid, claiming that as an Indian Fijian he faces torture in his own country. Last month, the Stanislaus County Central Democratic Committee signed off on the clemency ordinance, but that decision is outside of Modesto and in the hands of Gov. Gavin Newsom.