Santa Barbara County Sheriff discusses collaboration with ICE in County Board of Supervisors meeting

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office revealed how often it worked with immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE in 2019.

Sheriff Bill Brown made the presentation to the board of supervisors Tuesday afternoon as required by California law.

Brown says ICE requested meeting with more than 400 people in its custody last year.

108 of those were granted, and 38 were ultimately sent to the feds and deported.

CAUSE wants to stop those transfers.

“We want to stop ice transfers from Santa Barbara County jails because there is no reason to separate families when they are paying for something they did here locally," said CAUSE Policy & Communications Associate.

“The 38 such arrests made, and the majority of those as you can see from the second column,” said Sheriff Brown. “The majority of those offenders were habitual offenders.”

The sheriff says the 38 people deported last year were accused of crimes like stalking, kidnap, and more.

He did not reveal what the other people who spoke to ICE were accused of.