By Fidel Martinez | Los Angeles Times | AUG. 31, 2023 | Photo by Diana Ramirez
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the agency that oversees the operation of the state’s prison and parole systems, routinely reports U.S citizens or green card holders in their custody to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California via a public records request.
The civil rights organization shared some of these communications between CDCR and ICE with my colleague Andrea Castillo, who broke the story.
The ACLU NorCal analyzed more than 2,500 emails, attachments and policy records from August and September 2022 in conjunction with four other advocacy groups, and published a report based on their findings on Tuesday.
They found that in that two-month period, CDCR handed over more than 200 people to ICE custody.
Sana Singh, an Immigrants’ Rights Fellow at the ACLU NorCal and author of the report, told Castillo that this batch of documents is only a fraction of what they expect to receive.
“What’s reflected in these records is CDCR engaging in formalized discrimination,” Singh said. “We felt it was worth sharing now even before we get the full universe of records.”
Per the report, individuals in CDCR custody who are suspected of being foreign-born can be given a “potential hold” designation, a “label invented entirely by CDCR with no direction from ICE” that carries serious consequences, including being “barred from lower security custody placements, certain jobs, reentry programming, and more.”
The report paints a CDCR that’s overly deferential to ICE, when it doesn’t have to be.
In one email shared in the report, an unidentified CDCR official asks an ICE agent if it’s OK to remove a “potential hold” designation from an inmate despite its own records indicating they are a U.S. citizen.
“Can you confirm that the [individual] is a citizen please so I can clear this up,” the agent asks. “There were some identifiers that showed MX Citizenship, but I am thinking this is a mistake.”
“We’ve heard over and over through years from incarcerated people that this collusion was happening.” Singh told the Times.
“It’s particularly heinous in California, which is home to the largest immigration population,” she said. “So many families are implicated by these practices.”
Indeed, the findings of the ACLU NorCal challenge the long-perceived idea that California is a haven for immigrants. It’s an image that Gov. Gavin Newsom himself has repeatedly promoted.
When reached for comment, Newsom’s office referred Castillo to the CDCR. A spokesperson for the agency told Castillo that CDCR was working on making information available to ICE only when an individual goes into prison and when their release date is approaching, and that CDCR reaches out to ICE whenever the agency can’t verify where an inmate was born.
