Travis, Williamson County Officials Dispute DHS Report On Immigration Detention Requests

TRAVIS COUNTY, TX — Travis County Sheriff's Office officials on Tuescay challenged assertions by the Trump-era Department of Homeland Security the day before painting the county as having had the highest number of declined immigration detention requests than any other region.

The DHS on Monday released its first-ever "Weekly and Declined Detainer Outcome Report" that painted Travis County as the region with the highest number of declined hold requests of undocumented immigrants at the behest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The report is an offshoot of Trump's belief that immigrants pose a clear and present danger to the U.S.

The report purports to show 142 names on the list of those charged with crimes but still released. That amounts to 70 percent of the total number of declined detainers as extrapolated by the DHS. The report concluded that Travis County declined detainers on 128 inmates.

Not so fast, says the Travis County Sheriff's Office. For one thing, the new ICE policy related to honoring detention requests went into effect Feb. 1, later than the DHS-studied span of time from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3. As a result, the numbers of declined detention requests are significantly lower than what the DHS report claims.

"Our agency’s new ICE policy went into effect February 1, 2017," TCSO officials said. "On that date, we not only applied the policy to new and subsequent arrestees, we also re-assessed the detainer requests on all inmates in our custody at that time, some of whom had been there for many months."

What's more: "If their charges or prior convictions noted through criminal history check did not qualify for us to honor the detainer request under the new policy, we refused those detainers on that date."

Related story: Feds Say Travis County Rejected Most ICE Immigration Detention Requests

Elected by a wide margin in November — largely given her vow to end her predecessor's enthusiastic cooperation in aiding ICE in detaining people suspected of being undocumented — Travis County Sally Hernandez has adopted a more nuanced approach to enforcing immigration policy at the local level. At the center of that new approach is an emphasis placed on detaining felons among the undocumented class, rather than targeting everyone found to have illegally entered the country for deportation.

That more nuanced approach, predicated on fostering community trust of police, has earned Hernandez the ire of Gov. Greg Abbott, who favors across-the-board deportations and full cooperation with ICE agents. The governor has exacted retribution for Hernandez's stance, stripping the county of state grants used for a number of community programs unrelated to law enforcement in response.

Abbott has also championed a bill currently workings its way into the Legislature allowing for the removal of duly elected officials and possible jail time for those refusing to comply with his demands.

The governor jumped at the opportunity to comment on the DHS report as affirmation of his harder stance on immigrants, taking the assessment on face value: “Today’s report from DHS is deeply disturbing and highlights the urgent need for a statewide sanctuary city ban in Texas,” Abbott said. “The Travis County Sheriff’s decision to deny ICE detainer requests and release back into our communities criminals charged with heinous crimes – including sexual offenses against children, domestic violence and kidnapping – is dangerous and should be criminal in itself. Texas will act to put an end to sanctuary policies that put the lives of our citizens at risk.”

Again, the TCSO disputed such conclusions, crunching the numbers to allow for the discrepancies in time period comparison. From Feb. 5 to March 18, the number of declined immigration hold requests was 11, not 128 as the DHS report claimed in its own timeline before the local policy took effect.

"It has been widely reported that the inmates with declined detainers were released back into the community that week," TCSO officials wrote in their prepared statement. "Inmates are in our custody as a result of criminal charges and no inmate is released until he/she has posted bond or until a judge has disposed of his/her charges."

Moreover, its' possible that detainees ensnared during the Jan. 28-Feb. 3 span of DHS study may either still be in ICE custody or may have been released in exercising the tactics of due process, the TCSO said.

"It is possible that persons on the Jan. 28 – Feb. 3, 2017 declined detainer list may still be in our custody, may be in ICE custody as the result of a warrant we received from them or may have been released on bond," officials said. "In the weeks that followed the implementation of our new policy, the number of declined detainer requests quite logically, decreased significantly."

To illustrate, TCSO officials provided numbers from their own records:

Williamson County Sheriff's Office officials also disputed the veracity of the DHS report's claims as it relates to their own level of ICE detainer requests the agency says were denied. Unlike their Travis County counterparts, officials at WilCo honor all ICE requests, but that cooperation wasn't reflected in the report, officials said.

"This report is misleading and lists Williamson County Jail as an agency that refused to cooperate with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants," officials said in a prepared statement. "Williamson County Sheriff's Office honors all ICE detainers placed on individuals and will continue to do so."

But the report paints a different picture, sheriff's officials said: "The report stated that Williamson County refused four detention requests from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3. The individuals listed on the report were arrested in Williamson County and a detainer was placed on all four individuals."

The four suspects were later transferred to other facilities elsewhere in the region "...where we believe ICE detainers are not honored," the WilCo Sheriff's Office said. "At this moment, we cannot confirm the jursdictions to which they were transferred. We will continue to look into it and will keep you informed."

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