Calif. inmates still given to ICE despite sheriff kicking agents out of jails
By: Maya Lau, Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — A jailer at a Los Angeles County lockup walked into a cell on a recent Monday morning and removed an inmate wanted by federal immigration agents.
Dressed in a hunter green uniform with a gold sheriff’s star on his sleeve, Rodolfo Cabrera served the man with a Homeland Security Department form that requested he be transferred to agents upon his release because he was suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who promised during his 2018 campaign to end the “pipeline to deportation,” has removed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from the largest local jail system in the nation and limited the criteria that allows inmates to be transferred to federal custody for possible detention or deportation.
