Immigrants may be safe from extended jail time

Riverside may soon be in for some jail changes in regard to immigration detention. While deportation sometimes follows detainment, the detention itself can be a grueling experience. In order to lower the number of immigrants being detained, there have been many moves recently to keep jails and federal immigration agents from working together.

Jails all across the country are beginning to stop holding immigrants after federal officials request for them to be held past their release dates. Agents can submit detainer requests to any jail and if the request is honored, the immigrants are held long enough for ICE officials to take them into custody. However, it has recently been pointed out by many that these are simply requests and that it is not against the law to decide not to follow them.

Following this logic, many jails have begun to refuse to follow these requests. This follows on the heels of a case in which an undocumented immigrant was handed to ICE officials after her sentence was up. The 48 hour jail hold only started because ICE officials had placed a hold on her bail, making her unable to pay it. Since many believed that this was extremely unfair, recent measures have been made which will prevent immigrants from being held longer than they should be.

It may be one less problem for immigrants to be concerned about now that more jails are starting to hop onto this bandwagon and refuse to hold immigrants for ICE officials to pick up. However, detainment and even deportation are still very real risks. If you believe that you are at risk for either, you may wish to contact an attorney.

Source: American Canyon Eagle, “Napa jail will no longer honor immigration hold requests,” Kerana Todorov, June 11, 2014