The number of people transferred from local jails to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under state law decreased slightly in 2025 compared to the year before, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office reported Tuesday. 

Sheriff Bill Brown and staff gave the annual report to the Board of Supervisors as required by the TRUTH Act (Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds). 

The state law outlines when the Sheriff’s Office is allowed to respond to ICE requests for information and access to people in its custody. 

While transfers done under Senate Bill 54 were reported to decrease last year, federal immigration enforcement agents have reportedly arrested dozens of people on jail property as they’re released from custody.

The people arrested in jail lobbies, in parking lots or other jail property generally do not qualify for the SB 54 transfers, Brown said.

Aside from filing requests to the Sheriff’s Office, he noted that ICE can get information on people in jail custody through fingerprint records. The Sheriff’s Office website includes a custody tracker with release dates.

Around 40 people from local activist organizations gathered outside and later packed the meeting room at the County Administration Building in Santa Maria to demand the Sheriff’s Office end collaboration with ICE. 

“They don’t have to cooperate with ICE; they choose to do it,” said Primitiva Hernandez, executive director of 805UndocuFund, in a speech. 

Under state law, local law enforcement can provide information to ICE about people in jail custody and cooperate with transfer requests under specific circumstances. 

This applies to people who have been convicted of specific felony and misdemeanor crimes.

Sheriff’s personnel do not enforce immigration law, check the immigration status of people in custody, hold anyone beyond their release date without a warrant signed by a judge, or share information with ICE unless it meets the requirements, Chief Custody Deputy Ryan Sullivan said.

2025 Data on ICE Requests, Transfers

In 2025, ICE made requests for access to 221 people in jail custody. Most of the requests did not qualify for exceptions to the TRUTH Act and the Sheriff’s Office did not respond.

Twenty eight people did qualify and of those, 12 people were transferred from the Sheriff’s Office to ICE custody, Sullivan added. They were essentially released from county custody and re-arrested by ICE, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

In 2024, ICE requested information on 229 people in custody; 39 of those qualified for approval and 16 were transferred to ICE custody, Noozhawk reported.

Sometimes when the Sheriff’s Office notifies ICE, the agency does not come and pick them up, a yearly pattern, Brown said.

The Sheriff’s Office released another 33 people to ICE custody due to federal warrant transfers in 2025.  

“They are separate and distinctly different from what the normal ‘process’ would have been under SB 54,” Brown said.

The Sheriff’s Office shared the criminal convictions and arrest history for the 12 people transferred to ICE custody last year.

“If we have the opportunity to legally get those (12) people turned over and they would be deported from our country, that is a gain as far as I am concerned for our community,” Brown said. 

He said while he has compassion for the immigrant community and understands their fears, he’s in the “crime-fighting business.” 

Increased ICE Activity, Arrests at County Jails

Beyond the transfers done under state law, ICE agents have arrested dozens of people on county jail property as they’re released from local custody.

Some supervisors and community members were alarmed about the rate of those arrests and ICE’s continued activity on or near jail property.

Using 2025 data from the Deportation Data Project, Second District County Supervisor Laura Capps reported that ICE has made 99 recent arrests on or near county jail property while other counties report far fewer.  

Brown called the number anecdotal and inaccurate.

Capps and other supervisors pressed Brown on whether the Sheriff’s Office was monitoring this activity and keeping a log of those arrests.

Brown said no, besides the arrests that happen to be captured on security cameras. 

“Given our jurisdiction, staffing and other resources, attempting to do so would be impractical and burdensome,” he said.

Capps urged Brown to reconsider and track the numbers. 

“If the sheriff’s department isn’t doing it, who would?” she asked.

Fifth District County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino also pushed for a record.

“This is in our lobby, on our property. I would think that’s something we would want to quantify,” he said.

Local immigrant activist groups report “almost daily” federal immigration enforcement activity at the Santa Barbara Northern Branch Jail near Santa Maria.

“Frankly, I would much rather they arrest people in our jail if we can legally provide them access through SB 54, which is state law,” Brown said.

 “Or even at our jail because it is going to be less disruptive, it’s going to be more safe if they do it at the jail location rather than they do it in the community.”

Sullivan also added that, as a longtime jail employee, he is more concerned about what’s going on inside the jail rather than in the parking lot. They have a lot of cameras, but staff are concentrated on monitoring the interior ones, he said.

“There are certainly instances in which we are aware of ICE activity or ICE being in the lobby,” he said. “But, we are not aware of every single one of those.”

In a recent example, in March, a Carpinteria man released from jail custody was pursued by federal agents and injured himself while jumping a fence into a secured Main Jail area.

ICE did not file a TRUTH Act request for the man, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Activists commenting at Tuesday’s hearing said deputies have been present at some of the federal arrests on jail property.

“After seeing ICE do it over 10 times, I decided to take a peek in the glass facing the secure area, and immediately a voice came over the intercom asking what I was doing,” Ana Garcia said. 

“It seems like selective awareness that affects whether you notice or your staff notice what might be happening in the lobby.”

Brown added that the Sheriff’s Office could ask ICE about its local arrests, but he doesn’t want to because he was to “seem as far removed from ICE as possible.”

He told the supervisors that “their arrests are their business.” 

Brown said nothing is legally barring the Sheriff’s Office from tracking those arrests, but it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of the numbers.

“To be sort of unaware of what’s happening, also presents a real red flag to me of jail oversight,” Capps said. 

More than 60 community members spoke during public comment at Tuesday’s meeting and demanded the Sheriff’s Office stop voluntarily collaborating with ICE, a similar demand made at last year’s meeting. 

“You cannot differentiate yourself from ICE while also being a vehicle to make their immigration law enforcement easier,” said Maria Salguero, senior attorney and community advocacy leader with the Santa Barbara Immigrant Legal Defense Center.

What Comes Next?

Capps proposed limiting the Sheriff’s Office collaboration with ICE to just judicial warrants, with the sheriff’s cooperation. 

Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson disagreed with Capps. He said cooperating is the Sheriff’s decision, and he’s glad they are doing so.

Brown proposed finding “a middle ground” with the Santa Barbara Public Defender’s Office to notify the agency when the Sheriff’s Office receives ICE requests about their clients.

The Board of Supervisors approved 4-0, to file the TRUTH Act report, with Lavagnino absent because he left the meeting before the vote.

County supervisors invited ICE representatives to attend Tuesday’s meeting, but Brown said officials texted him a day before the forum that they did not have clearance to attend.