What’s at stake?
Even before President Donald Trump took office a second time, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office reported a five-year high in terms of the number of individuals it transferred into the custody of ICE in 2024.
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office handed over 102 individuals to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year — a five-year high.
The ICE transfers from the county jail in 2024 were more than double the number reported in 2023.
Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni shared the 2024 data at a Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.
California’s Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds (or TRUTH) Act requires local law enforcement to hold annual public forums to provide statistics on interactions and communication with ICE.
The latest data covers the period from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 of 2024, representing the final year of former President Joe Biden’s term, Zanoni emphasized.
“I know this has been a big political topic right now with the current administration that’s in the White House,” he said, “but these stats of 102 that were transferred are from the previous administration, when they were in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
More about the sheriff’s data on ICE transfers
In 2024, the sheriff’s office transferred 102 individuals from its custody to ICE. That’s more than two times the 39 transfers reported in 2023.
That was out of 389 total hold requests from ICE in 2024. State law defines “hold requests” as instances when ICE asks a law enforcement agency to maintain custody of an individual longer than usual in order to transfer them to ICE’s custody.
The sheriff’s office broke down the 102 transfers by the category of the individual’s crime – all of which “were classified as felonies,” Zanoni said. Those four categories include:
- 52 crimes against persons
- 41 property crimes
- 6 felony drug crimes
- 3 sex crimes
The “crimes against property” resulting in ICE transfers swelled to a five-year high in the 2024 report as well – the highest number reported in the sheriff’s office data since 10 cases were included in its 2020 report.
Zanoni provided a further breakdown of the felonies incorporated into those four categories Tuesday, specifying there were:
- 15 cases of domestic violence
- 12 cases of DUI, involving “serious bodily injury or death”
- 8 cases of false imprisonment
- 8 cases of burglary
- 7 cases of assault
- 4 cases of robbery
The 102 transfers to ICE were out of over 26,214 total bookings to the sheriff’s office.
In addition, Zanoni said there were “zero interviews conducted by ICE” in the sheriff’s office’s facility in 2024.
What did Fresno County supervisors say about the data on ICE transfers?
Supervisor Garry Bredefeld asked the sheriff why not all 389 of the holds requests from ICE resulted in transfers to federal authorities.
Zanoni said that on some occasions, that’s because an individual is no longer in their custody by the time his office receives the hold request. In other instances, it’s because an individual has charges that don’t meet exemptions to SB 54, the state law largely barring local law enforcement from communication with ICE with exceptions for individuals accused of certain crimes.
“They’re not always granted,” Zanoni said, “and the transfer is not always completed.”
Bredefeld railed against the state government for making it more difficult for “all of the people in law enforcement to do your job.”
“These are serious crimes,” he said. “We’re talking about domestic violence, DUI involving people being injured, assault, robbery, burglary, sex crimes, drug trafficking, child endangerment – these are not good folks.”
Supervisor Nathan Magsig voiced concerns with the number of felony DUIs covered in Zanoni’s report.
“Twelve accidents where you have individuals under the influence,” he said, “who are in this country illegally, who either killed someone or caused great bodily harm is way too high.”
Supervisor Luis Chavez stressed how “tiny” a percentage the 102 transfers to ICE represents out of the over 26,000 total bookings.
“I think there’s a consensus that the vast majority of immigrants here come here to work,” he said.
Chavez requested data about how many crimes they’re investigating due to reports from undocumented people. While Zanoni said he didn’t have that information in front of him, he made a plea to the undocumented community to continue reporting crimes.
“When individuals are the victims of crimes or they’re the witness to a crime,” he said, “the sheriff’s office does not ask your immigration status.”
What has Zanoni previously said about communication with ICE?
Tuesday’s presentation comes after Zanoni previously criticized state law governing his office’s interactions with ICE.
Those criticisms also came after Zanoni told Fresnoland in November 2024 following the election of President Donald Trump that the new presidential administration wouldn’t change how his office does business. Zanoni also stated in November that he didn’t believe deportations would happen en masse, and that mass deportations would be “devastating” to the local economy and community.
During his remarks Tuesday, Zanoni again lamented some of the restrictions SB 54 imposes on his office to notify federal authorities when individuals that ICE put a hold request on are about to be released from the county jail.
“Under SB 54, we are not illegally allowed to have communication with (ICE) to say, hey, so-and-so is being released right now. Come pick them up,” he said, “so people are released. That is an unfortunate consequence of a system that does not allow us to communicate with our law enforcement partners.”
