Note: This is the first of three articles publishing today about the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office’s collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sweep of undocumented migrants. See the second, “Flagler County Sheriff Participation in Federal Immigration Sweeps Raises Questions About Local Taxpayer Costs.” The third will post later this afternoon.
At least 205 individuals arrested as part of the Trump administration sweep of undocumented migrants have been detained at the Flagler County jail so far this year, based on a day-by-day analysis of jail bookings by FlaglerLive.
The number is an indication of local immigration enforcement activity and the extent to which Immigration and Customs Enforcement-related arrests have burdened the local jail, though Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly says local taxpayers will not be shouldering the costs.
The Sheriff’s Office is not releasing financial or any other details pertaining to detentions, including the total number of detentions, referring such questions to ICE, which has not responded. That has left any attempt at taking the measure of ICE operations’ impact on the local community and the Sheriff’s Office to rely on scraps of publicly available information.
Jail records are heavily if inconsistently redacted.
Normally, all bookings include the full name of the individual, their home address, their booking and inmate number, the date and time of their booking, their physical attributes, the charge or charges, the classification (misdemeanor or felony), who and what law enforcement agency brought them in.
Public identification of the incarcerated is one of a fundamental constitutional right with its roots in the centuries-old principle of habeas corpus (a Latin term meaning “produce the body”), which protects against arbitrary detention. All such records are public records under Florida law. The Sheriff’s Office says ICE regulations override state law.
As a result, some information about the detainees’ ages, sex, race, height, weight and eye or hair color could be gleaned in bookings during January and early February. On occasion, the charges that may have contributed to arrests would also have been listed in the early stages–typically, traffic issues–as did what agency brought them to the jail. Since mid-February, the records have been all but blacked out.
Detainees picked up on local charges will go through the normal steps of first appearances before a judge, arraignment and so on, with their local cases disposed of first before they are turned over to ICE. That was the case, for example, with two individuals who briefly appeared before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols earlier this week along with their attorney, Assistant Public Defender Bill Bookheimer, both facing misdemeanor traffic charges.
The Flagler County jail is one of numerous 287(g) jail facilities. The number is a reference to a federal law that provides for local jails and law enforcement to partner with ICE and deputize local law enforcement officers to be adjunct immigration enforcement agents, screening detainees and holding them for immigration agents. FlaglerLive has learned that the Flagler County jail is among the busiest 287(g) facilities in the state.
Based on an analysis of records for the first part of the year, the detainees were overwhelmingly female and overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, Latino (categorized as “Hispanic” in the bookings). For example, over the weekend of February 6-9, when a record 38 undocumented detainees were booked at the jail, all but two were women, all but six were Latino. The group included four people categorized as white, one as Black, one as Asian. Most were listed as “transient,” a term normally ascribed to the homeless. In this context, the term may have a political rather than factual connotation.
The next-highest number of detainees booked in a single 24-hour period was on Feb. 11-12, when 31 women were brought in. By then the redactions had already blacked out the detainees’ physical attributes. Soon after that, all information was redacted. The Flagler jail does not house juveniles. It is not clear where the detainees’ children are held, if and when they are detained.
The bookings indicate that ICE agents brought in most of the detainees. In numerous cases, Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies, such as detention deputies Alyssa Demarco-Wall, Caroline Arzon and road deputy Ashley Jacques, are listed as the officers bringing in the detainees, suggesting–or confirming–that the deputies were among those granted authority under 287(g). Others have included Florida Highway Patrol troopers and, most often, nameless ICE agents. Most of the time, the detainees’ criminal classification is “fugitive from justice”–an inaccuracy in many cases, since many of the detainees ICE has rounded up have no criminal records.
According to a November analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, 73 percent of ICE detainees had no criminal conviction, nearly half had no criminal charges on their record, and only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction. Arrests in Florida have followed a similar pattern. (See: “ICE Arrests in Florida of Migrants Without Criminal Records Surged 450% in June.”)
It has been impossible to verify the criminal status of local detainees since the Sheriff’s Office will not make that information available and ICE’s public affairs office has not responded to information requests.
Rare have been the days without ICE bookings at the Flagler County jail, also known as the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility. But for the two huge spikes in February, late January and early February were slow. Between February 17 and March 16, not a single day passed without bookings, which have averaged four per day, including 10 on Feb. 28 and 11 over the March 6-9 weekend.
Based on statements by the Sheriff’s Office, all detainees at the jail, whether facing local, criminal charges or awaiting processing by ICE, receive the same level of medical care, may communicate with family and have visitations, and benefit from legal representation. The assertions could not be independently verified.
If so, then detention at the Flagler jail is considerably more humane for migrants than in ICE holding facilities, where conditions, according to media reports, have been even more secretive, lacking in oversight, sanitation, necessities or care and due process. In some cases, they have been brutalized. (See: “More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by ICE and Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.”)
Land of no turn signals says says
Nice!
Jay Tomm says
AND??? How it should be!
Cisco says
I just want to know how many was turned over to ICE and were actually picked up for deportation, alot of Sheriff departments are saying that they are holding immigrants just to get federal funding, just show me the proof, it’s public information 🤔
Skibum says
What I would love to see is the statistical breakdown of those held and turned over to ICE who were actually placed in custody by law enforcement subsequent to a crime, compared to the ICE bandits driving around rural farm communities, new housing developments, etc… running and tackling agricultural workers, roofing contractor employees, restaurant workers or simply people driving their kids to school and locking them up in the “green roof inn”. These purges all over America continue to happen just so the convicted felon-in-chief can lie about all of the dangerous “would be terrorists” his masked ICE commandos have captured, including the horrible, extremely dangerous 6-year old with the flappy eared beanie hat that made headlines all across the country recently, that our own federal government continues to fast track for deportation.
Thank God for the brave heroes of ICE… so brave and fearless that the must wear masks, no name ID tags, use unmarked vehicles, and be willing to shoot to kill ANY citizen who dares ask them what in the hell are they doing on the streets of America?!
Bill Boots says
you funny guy——NOT!
Laurel says
Grammatically illegal.
Justsayin says
No criminal record except coming in the country illegally. Is that not against the law?
Ray W. says
Let’s face facts, Justsayin.
If Congress ever wanted to make the minor offense of improper entry across the border punishable by mandatory removal, it has had decades to make it so. But Congress made the minimum punishment for improper entry a $25 fine. Yes, it seems reasonable to infer from your comment that you think all undocumented immigrants should be deported, no questions asked. Congress does not agree with you. In a nation of laws, by definition, that makes your belief wrong.
That’s why I argue that the current administration should make it its policy to bring most of the undocumented immigrants who are detained before a magistrate within 24 hours and let them plea guilty to the minor misdemeanor offense of improper entry, if that is all they are accused of doing. Fine them the minimum $25 authorized by law and immediately release them back into the countryside so they can go back to their families, their jobs, their church homes, their communities. Jeopardy prevents any further prosecution for the one-time improper entry at the border. Problem solved.
If a newly detained undocumented immigrant turns out to be one of the 308 convicted immigrant murderers released into the countryside by the first Trump administration in order to make space for asylum seekers in detention centers, as determined by a Cato Institute review of DHS records, hold him or her for deportation.
You don’t deport immigrants who are so beneficial to our economy just because of the commission of what Congress long ago defined as a minor misdemeanor, punishable at minimum by a small fine; it makes neither fiscal nor economically productive sense.
In sum, I argue for what Congress specifically permits. You argue for what Congress does not require.
Justsayin says
Did the Obama Administration use your same logic when they deported over 3.1 million people?
Ray W. says
Yes, it did.
President Obama signed an executive order directing the focus of his administration on removing the worst of the worst immigrants first. During his first week in office in 2017, President Trump replaced that order with his own executive order focusing his administration on the mass deportation of immigrants, including those seeking asylum.
No longer focusing on deporting the worst of the worst, and with Congress declining to fund the building of more detention space, the Trump administration began releasing immigrants already convicted of violent crimes in order to make space to hold immigrants seeking asylum. Ultimately, the first Trump administration released 306 already convicted immigrant murderers (my error on previously using 308), and many thousands of immigrants already convicted of other violent crimes, so that asylum seekers could be held in detention pending review of their eligibility for removal.
This is the sad message of a Cato Institute report, titled “Trump Administration Policies Made America Less Safe. Here’s the Data”.
I have never argued that deporting immigrants with criminal records should cease. And, I agree that immigrants who are detained at the border should be given the option to decide whether to be returned back to Mexico or Canada or to be detained pending review of their status. Many chose return over detention during the Obama administration. Many who chose detention were deemed deportable and deported they were.
But the Obama administration did efficiently follow the law as Congress defined it, perhaps more efficiently than Trump did, but that is a different argument.
Thank you for posing the issue. It is important for the FlaglerLive community to understand that President Trump intentionally made Americans less safe by prioritizing the mass detention of asylum seekers over the detention of the already criminally convicted.
Steve says
Not only coming in the country illegally but isn’t everything else they do while theyre here then illegal like driving without a license, not paying taxes, etc. I asked an illegal immigrant one time how many other immigrants does he think are driving without a license and insurance and without hesitation said 65%. Are these major criminals? Well no but how nice would it be to be involved in an accident with one of them.
PaulT says
It is actually a misdemeanor. US Code 1325
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
So is rolling through a stop sign or not using turn signals.
PaulT says
‘So is rolling through a stop sign or not using turn signals’
Which is what FHP are pulling motorists over for AFTER profiling them because of their skin color. If their ID isn’t satisfactory they’re turned over to ICE regardless of status. Active immigration court summons, waiting for pending asylum or residency hearings, valid work permit?
None of those matter to ICE agents who have a detain and deport quota to meet.
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R.S. says
Depends on whether you advocate also obeying international laws and rules and agreements. According to our Immensity, the President, it’s only between his two ears because he doesn’t believe in international laws; however, the trial of Nuremberg would say otherwise for this country’s government. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells it out: “Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. AND: Article 13: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
In the community of sovereign nations, these rules should hold. It’s not the powerful nations alone that decide rights and rules for other nations. One does not get to run a war against another nation, merely because one disagrees with the governing authority of another nation–however it may have come about–or because one regards oneself as the chosen people of the spirit ruling over this vast universe.
R.S. says
All undocumented immigrants should have due process before deportation. According to the Declaration of Human Rights, ¶12 and ¶13, any person has the right to leave his/her country and to return to his/her country. While our own justices will judge whether or not a person has a legitimate right to protection by being in this country, it is of paramount importance that undocumented immigrants’ reasons be given a proper hearing. Concentration camps for class/race-based deportations have never been a legitimate aim in this country. As the erstwhile leader of the free world, I would have expected far more of a moral stature from our officials. Fascist dictatorships have always grown on the fertile soil of spineless law enforcers.
Here illegally? Leave says
Should have been a lot more. I know of a couple dozen here illegally that keep looking over their shoulders
Lock em all up untill they get out
Deborah Coffey says
We have become a disgusting, hated country since Trump took office only a year ago. And, we are sitting in the midst of what is very possibly going to become WWIII. Protest in the streets on March 28th. The wannabe king is a sociopath. Hatred never made America great…never.
Land of no turn signals says says
Debbie ,you were probably silent when Obama did it.
Pierre Tristam says
Like comparing a tic’s bite with a stampede of mastodons. Unsurprising for tic reasoning.
Sherry says
@land. . . . AGAIN. . . several of us have posted over and over again the vast differences in deportation policy when President Obama was in office compared to trump’s gestapo ICE tactics. Ray W. laid it all outAGAIN in his comment on this article.
Yet you constantly refuse to read and “learn” the differences. . . preferring to be rude and strike out at those who speak out against your lord and master. That kind of hate filled behavior doesn’t influence anyone in a positive way. It doesn’t contain factual information that can influence anyone in a positive way.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?