L.A. County jails are handing inmates over to ICE for the first time in years
Eight inmates were released to ICE in May and a dozen more in June, according to sheriff's department records reviewed by The Times. Eleven are Mexican, six are Guatemalan, and one each is from Colombia, El Salvador and Honduras. Their ages ranged from 19 to 63 years old.
The transfers to ICE are the first by the sheriff's department since early 2020, when records show 43 people were sent to federal immigration custody from sheriff's stations, jails and courts. That marked a steep decline from the 457 handed over in 2019, during President Trump's first term.
The sheriff's department and legal experts say the recent transfers were lawful and conducted in accordance with sanctuary policies and ordinances approved in recent years by the state, L.A. County and cities including Los Angeles, Long Beach and West Hollywood.
The Trump administration obtained federal judicial warrants for all but one of the inmates who were released in May and June, the sheriff's department records said.
The lone exception was transferred to ICE because he was a '[p]erson extradited to United States to face criminal charges based on agreement between Department of Homeland Security (ICE) and LA County (District Attorney and Sheriff) to honor his immigration detainer,' according to the records.
'We have been monitoring sheriff messaging on ICE cooperation and it is our understanding that the recent transfers of prisoners to ICE are all in response to judicially issued warrants as required by federal and state law,' L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman said in a statement. 'Despite 'sanctuary' rhetoric, we are unaware of any conflict between California and federal law on this requirement.'
But the transfers represent a new tactical approach that the Trump administration has quietly rolled out as masked federal agents have struck fear into L.A. County's immigrant communities by sweeping people away during hundreds of raids on businesses, homes and gathering spaces.
In a statement, the sheriff's department said that 'state and county law/policy allow for cooperation in response to a judicial warrant,' which is a legal document signed by a judge that orders the department to hand individuals over to ICE.
Sanctuary laws generally forbid local authorities from enforcing civil immigration laws, but there are exceptions for cases that involve criminal offenses. The recent transfers, the sheriff's department said, involved warrants for illegally reentering the country after having been previously deported, a federal crime that can carry a multiyear prison sentence.
The sheriff's department said in a statement that it 'cannot say for a certainty that we had never received one before; however, we hadn't received any of these warrants in the past several years.'
The sheriff's department provided The Times with the names of the eight inmates it transferred to ICE in May. One had been sentenced to six years in prison for felony voluntary manslaughter, according to L.A. County court records. Another pleaded not guilty to a domestic violence-related crime on May 21. A third was sentenced to 99 days in county jail for violating post-release supervision.
It was not immediately clear what offenses the other five inmates had been accused of committing to land them in local lockups.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said last week that it had arrested more than 2,700 people 'in the L.A. area' since launching an aggressive crackdown in June. Those detainees are typically held in federal immigration detention facilities, not county jails.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Private equity billionaire David Rubenstein on Jerome Powell: He's done a very good job
In 1997, billionaire Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein hired a then-relatively unknown member of the George H.W. Bush administration named Jerome Powell. Over the course of eight years, Powell led the private equity firm's industrial group and was a partner. Fast-forward to today, Rubenstein owns the MLB's Baltimore Orioles, and Powell is a Trump-appointed Fed chairman under attack from... President Trump. A great example that one never knows where life will take you. "Not everybody says he's done a perfect job, but I think he's done a very good job because he tells you what he's going to do or what the Fed's likely to do before they do it, which is unusual for a lot of Fed chairs," Rubenstein told me on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid (see video above). Rubenstein added, "Secondly, we haven't had a recession since Jay Powell has been chairman of the Fed. Recessions occur in the United States roughly every seven years or so. And obviously, the Fed chairman is not the only person responsible for there being or not being a recession. But I think we haven't had one because I think he managed the inflation reasonably well." Tell this to President Trump and his Cabinet members, who have gone on the attack against Powell, whose term as chair ends in May 2026. The US dollar tanked more than 1% on Wednesday after reports saying Trump had polled a group of lawmakers on whether he should fire Powell. Trump also reportedly drew up a resignation letter. Trump later said in a press conference with the leader of Bahrain that it was 'highly unlikely' he would fire Powell in the near term. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week that a formal process to pick Powell's successor has begun. This is the latest drama between Trump and the Federal Reserve. Trump has publicly called Powell a "numbskull" and nicknamed him "too late" for holding firm on interest rates in large part due to the administration's tariff policy. The president has signaled a desire for the Fed to cut interest rates by as much as three percentage points. Read more: How much control does the president have over the Fed and interest rates? Interest rates currently stand at 4.25% to 4.5%. The Fed last cut interest rates in December 2024 by 25 basis points. "I haven't talked to him specifically about it, so I'm just surmising, but my guess is that nobody likes to be criticized by the president of the United States," Rubenstein said. "But he hasn't responded to any of the criticism, which I give him great credit for doing." Trump is reportedly eyeing longtime loyalists Kevin Hassett and Kevin Warsh to replace Powell. Bessent is also reportedly in the mix, as is Fed governor Christopher Waller. The problem with all four respected economic minds is that they are perceived as too close to Trump, thereby potentially risking the Fed's long-held independence. "I think the independence of the Fed is absolutely critical, and not just for the current Fed chairman, who I respect, Jay Powell, but the next Fed chairman," JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told reporters on a call earlier this week. Rubenstein agrees. "The Federal Reserve is really the crown jewel of the governmental system in many ways because it's seen as very independent and very merit-oriented," Rubenstein said. "I think the markets would respond better if somebody is seen as independent." "I think overall it would be a good thing for the country to have a strong Fed chair succeed Jay Powell rather than a weak Fed chair," he added. Rubenstein co-founded the Carlyle Group in 1987. Today, the private equity powerhouse boasts more than $447 billion in assets under management. The company has been led by CEO Harvey Schwartz, a Goldman Sachs (GS) alum, since February 2023. Rubenstein, a former aide to President Jimmy Carter, has become a noted philanthropist and has signed the Giving Pledge. President Joe Biden awarded Rubenstein the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance's editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
USA Today
26 minutes ago
- USA Today
Which MAGA supporters is Trump calling 'weaklings' over Epstein files? See the list
President Donald Trump appears at odds with some of his supporters over files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was a financier and convicted sex offender who died while awaiting trial in 2019. Trump had long accused the Biden administration of hiding a list of Epstein clients. In March, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had a "truckload" of Epstein files to review and potentially release. On July 7, Bondi's Justice Department said there was no "client list" and no further disclosure was needed. The move prompted an outcry for more transparency among Republicans, even as Trump appeared to downplay it as old news. His apparent frustration over the matter reached a new high in a July 16 Truth Social Post. "(Democrats') new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bulls***,' hook, line, and sinker," Trump wrote. "Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don't want their support anymore!" Trump later said the DOJ should release "credible" records related to Epstein, according to a White House pool report. Who was Jeffrey Epstein? What to know about the late sex offender Which Republicans have called for more transparency on the Epstein files? Since Bondi's memo, here are some prominent Republicans who have spoken out against the Trump administration with calls to release the files: House Democrats have also introduced legislative measures to release the Epstein files. What was Epstein convicted of? Epstein never sat for trial, but he pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of a minor for prostitution in 2008 in Florida. He was also a registered sex offender. He died in 2019, before he could be tried for sex trafficking charges in New York. He was found hanged in a Manhattan jail cell, and the medical examiner ruled it a suicide. When was Epstein caught and first charged? A police investigation into Epstein began in March 2005 after a woman from the Palm Beach area in Florida said her 14-year-old step-daughter had been molested by a wealthy man. In July 2006, Epstein was indicted by a grand jury on a felony charge of soliciting prostitution, which did not address the 14-year-old victim's age. He was arrested and spent one night in Palm Beach County jail, released the next day on $3,000 bond. Epstein signed a non-prosecution agreement that was called the "deal of the century." He pleaded guilty in 2008 to solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of a minor for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail, where he was allowed work leave privileges six days a week/12 hours a day over the 13 months he served. When he was released from jail, he spent a year on house arrest but was allowed to travel anywhere so long as he returned in 24 hours. Is Donald Trump in the Epstein files? Trump has already appeared in legal documents concerning Epstein's crimes but never in a way that implicates him. In the 1990s, Trump rode on aircraft owned by Epstein, according to flight logs released in two lawsuits. But that was 30-plus years ago. In Palm Beach County state attorney documents, an image of a message pad communication seized in a Palm Beach police search appeared, but there is nothing more than Trump's name and a phone number. Contributing: Aysha Bagchi, Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@ Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @
New York Post
26 minutes ago
- New York Post
These families are most at risk of losing HUD housing due to Trump's proposed time limits
More than one million low-income households — most of them working families with children — who depend on the nation's public housing and Section 8 voucher programs could be at risk of losing their government-subsidized homes under the Trump administration's proposal to impose a two-year time limit on rental assistance. That's according to new research from New York University, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, which suggests the time restriction could affect as many as 1.4 million households helped by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The NYU report, which was published Thursday, also raises concerns about the largely untested policy, as most of the limited number of local housing authorities that have voluntarily tried the idea eventually abandoned the pilots. Advertisement 7 The time restriction could affect as many as 1.4 million households helped by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. AP 'If currently assisted households are subject to a two-year limit, that would lead to enormous disruption and large administrative costs,' for public housing authorities, the report said, adding that once the limit was up, housing authorities 'would have to evict all of these households and identify new households to replace them.' Defining temporary assistance 7 Map of U.S. public housing agencies with time-limited programs. Local Housing Solutions Advertisement Amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued reforms like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs while motivating low-income families to work toward self-sufficiency. 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' Elderly and disabled people would be exempted, but there's little guidance from the agency on how time-limited housing assistance would be implemented — how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined. Advertisement 7 'It's broken and deviated from its original purpose, which is to temporarily help Americans in need,' Turner said. 'HUD assistance is not supposed to be permanent.' AP The NYU researchers dove deep into HUD's nationwide data over a 10-year period, analyzing nearly 4.9 million households that have been public housing and Section 8 voucher tenants. Of that, about 2.1 million could be affected by the time limits because they include at least one adult who is not elderly or disabled and about 70% of those households had already been living on those subsidies for two or more years. HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett pushed back on the NYU study. 'There is plenty of data that strongly supports time limits and shows that long-term government assistance without any incentive disincentivizes able-bodied Americans to work,' Lovett said in a statement. Working families most at risk Advertisement 7 About 2.1 million could be affected by the time limits because they include at least one adult who is not elderly or disabled. AP The time limits could displace more than a million children, as it would largely punish families who are working but still earning far below their area's median income. 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab at NYU's Furman Center who co-authored the study with Ellie Lochhead. Their health, education, employment and earnings potential can 'change in really meaningful ways if they have stable housing,' Aiken said. 7 The time limits could displace more than a million children, as it would largely punish families who are working but still earning far below their area's median income. AP Havalah Hopkins, a 33-year-old single mom, has been living in a public housing unit outside of Seattle since 2022, but now fears a two-year time limit would leave her and her teenage son homeless. The 14-year-old boy has autism but is considered high-functioning, so how HUD defines disabled and 'able-bodied' for the time limit could determine if their family will be affected by the restriction. Hopkins, who does catering work for a local chain restaurant, pays $450 a month in rent — 30% of her household income — for their two-bedroom apartment in Woodinville, Washington. Asked what she likes most about her home, Hopkins said: 'I like that I can afford it.' Few successful examples 7 'Housing assistance is especially impactful for children,' said Claudia Aiken, the director of new research partnerships for the Housing Solutions Lab. AP Advertisement Of the 17 housing authorities that tried time limits, 11 discontinued the trial. None tried two-year limits — the most common policy was a five-year limit with the option for an extra two and the limits usually applied to specific programs or referrals. Although there are over 3,000 housing authorities in the country, only 139 of them have ever been granted flexibility to consider testing a time limit while using federal funds for programs such as job training and financial counseling. 'Any conversation about time limits ends up being this really nuanced, hyper-local focus on what works for specific communities rather than this broad national-level implementation,' said Jim Crawford, director of the Moving to Work Collaborative which oversees that group of housing authorities. 7 Of the 17 housing authorities that tried time limits, 11 discontinued the trial. AP Advertisement Even with those supports, several housing authorities said rent was still too high and well-paying jobs were scarce, according to the study. Others said they didn't have enough capacity to provide enough supportive services to help households afford rent. Shawnté Spears of the Housing Authority of the County of San Mateo in California said the agency's five-year time limits have 'given folks motivation' to meet their goals in tandem with self-sufficiency programs funded by dollars Trump wants to cut. Time limits also give more households the chance to use vouchers, she said. But with the Bay Area's high rents, some tenants still have to spend more than half of their income on rent once their time is up or end up back on waitlists. 'I believe the program is very helpful in getting folks prepared but there lies this really, really significant rent burden here in our county,' said Spears. 'When folks do leave our time-limited program, they are facing an uphill battle.'
