Around 50 people, including residents, immigration advocacy organizers and local religious leaders, gathered outside the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Friday in Hillsborough to voice criticism of the county sheriff’s policies following the detention of Hillsborough resident Jocsan Cornejo Cornejo by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week.
Organizers with Siembra NC and Apoyo called for a change in the way the sheriff’s office communicates with federal immigration enforcement. Specifically, they want the sheriff’s office to adopt a judicial warrant policy, citing similar policies in other counties like Mecklenburg and Forsyth.
Siembra NC organizer Juan Miranda said Sheriff Charles Blackwood has an “open-door policy” with ICE, rather than a judicial warrant policy.
Apoyo orangizer Marco Cervantes said he wanted an end to all voluntary cooperation or communication with federal immigration enforcement.
“We would like that to be non-existent,” Cervantes said.
Deborah Stroman of the Orange County Human Rights and Relations Commission was in attendance as well. She said she has made a formal request for the sheriff to talk to the commission about his policies in cases like Cornejo.
“I feel in a sense that he said one thing and now he’s going against it,” she said after the rally.
Blackwood’s office has had a policy to not honor detainer requests from ICE, where an individual would be held for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would have otherwise been released when requested by immigration enforcement. But the organizers of Friday’s event say that is not enough.
According to law enforcement’s timeline of events, Cornejo was being held on charges of DWI, driving while license revoked, exceeding posted speed, assault on a female, assault on a child under 12 and battery of an unborn child in late June.
As previously reported on Chapelboro.com, Cornejo’s fingerprints triggered what the sheriff’s office described as an “automatic inquiry of his immigration status” and detainer requests were submitted on June 23 and 25 by two different federal offices.
According to the sheriff, Cornejo “remained in our facility because no one posted his bond and because his state charges were not yet resolved.”
ICE officials called the sheriff’s office on July 18 to “inquire about inmates for whom they had submitted detainer requests,” which the sheriff added, “routinely happens.”
An administrator in the sheriff’s office did notify federal officials that Cornejo had a bond hearing scheduled for later that day, which prompted federal authorities to renew their detainer request.
“DHS was told the detention center would not hold him if he’s eligible for release,” according to Thursday’s release from the sheriff’s office.
Cornejo was taken into federal custody about 30 minutes before that bond hearing, according to the sheriff’s office.
According to organizers, Cornejo is being held in Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.
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