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In 2017, we at Grassroots Alexandria reached out to our local sheriff to ask about his cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As activists working with allies in Tenants and Workers United, we thought we were making a small request. We asked our sheriff to use his discretion to stop transferring people from our jail to ICE without a proper legal warrant issued by a judge.
However, a new report from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows that local jails are the primary source of ICE detainees. Forty-one percent of ICE detainees nationwide come from local jails; 80 percent of ICE detainees from Alexandria are taken from the sheriff’s office. When it comes to immigration enforcement in Alexandria, our local jail isn’t a small thing; it’s the main thing.
In the face of an unresponsive White House, the local jail is the one place where our local leaders can exert control over ICE. Fortunately, this is exactly where we should exert control. According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Sheriff Dana Lawhorne transferred 270 inmates to ICE, out of a total of 335 people detained between October 2014 and May 2018. Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows that the transfer rate significantly increased in 2017 over previous years.
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