OC Sheriff Don Barnes discusses his department's policy on immigration enforcement in ABC7 interview

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- Last month, during the first week of the President Donald Trump's second administration, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes released a statement saying his department "does not enforce federal immigration law. It is not part of our primary mission, and we remain focused on violations of state and local laws."

The statement went on to reassure residents that the agency would respond to calls for service regardless of a person's immigration status.

In an interview with ABC7 this week, Barnes discussed his message to the public.

"I thought it was important to reiterate that we do not do federal immigration enforcement at the street level," the sheriff said. "We have never done that, we have no intention of doing that, and we will not do that."

What the Sheriff's Department does is collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the custodial level by transferring incarcerated inmates to ICE custody.

The state's SB 54 law, also known as the California Values Act, limits whom deputies can hold for or transfer to ICE custody. Convicts of serious and violent felonies, for example, are eligible for transfer.

"I have no problem with anybody being here and trying to seek a better life. I don't think anybody does," Barnes told ABC7. "My biggest concern always has been the safety of our communities.

"And we have people -- regardless of immigration status -- if they commit serious crimes, they should be held accountable," the sheriff said. "And if they're very serious crimes -- and ICE doesn't want all of them, they want the most serious -- we should be able to turn them over in a custodial environment so they don't return to the communities in which they prey upon. That's always been my chief concern with SB 54."

The Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice has been examining these transfers since 2018.

The nonprofit's research and policy manager, Mai Do, said that as of 2023, the OC Sheriff's Department is one of 11 law-enforcement agencies across California still conducting ICE transfers. She says this collaboration decreases public safety by hurting trust.

"Because local leaders, because local law enforcement agencies are not establishing that bright, hard line when it comes to not working with federal immigration enforcement, it becomes hard to trust local government and to trust local law enforcement," she said. "When you say, 'Oh, we're only going to work with them in these circumstances,' well, how can we trust that you won't work with them in other circumstances?"

According to data from the California attorney general's office, the OC Sheriff's Department transferred more than 1,000 people to ICE from 2019 through 2023. That's the most transfers to immigration of all California law enforcement agencies since 2019.

When ABC7 asked why the OCSD's transfer totals were so high when compared to other agencies in the state, Barnes replied: "It's not high numbers, it's a mathematical number. Orange County is the third-most populous in the state. We have a high immigrant population here -- not just from South America or Mexico, from all over the world. We have a large Vietnamese population. We have a large Middle Eastern population -- not all of those are offending."

Data gathered by the Harbor Institute showed that since 2021, these transfers were higher among people from Mexico, followed by those from Vietnam and Colombia.

"Vietnamese community members in particular are really disproportionately impacted," Do said. "They make up about 16% of foreign-born residents in the county and yet consistently make up much more than 40%, going up to 60% and higher of transfers from the Orange County Sheriff's Department to ICE. And so it's really important that folks understand that -- it's not just one particular group of people that is being impacted by immigration enforcement, it's all of our immigrant refugee communities here in Orange County."

According to an OCSD spokesperson, the sheriff will be presenting the 2024 ICE data to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. That presentation is tentatively scheduled for March 25.