Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood is defending the policies of his department after immigration advocacy organizations accused the sheriff of “doublespeak on immigration enforcement.”
Jocsan Cornejo Cornejo was in the custody of the Orange County Jail on Thursday, July 18, and had a bond hearing set for that afternoon. Before that hearing, where his bond was unsecured, Cornejo was taken into custody by federal authorities, according to a statement from Blackwood.
Advocacy organizations Siembra NC and Apoyo are holding a press conference Friday to call for the end of the sheriff’s offices “courtesy calls” to ICE when inmates wanted by federal immigration officials are in custody. Blackwood has long had a policy to not honor detainer requests, where ICE officials ask that a person be held beyond the time they would otherwise be released.
The two groups organizing Friday’s event say that’s not enough.
Cornejo is a father of five, the groups say, whose fiancé is in the fourth month of a high-risk pregnancy and is now left without the family’s primary breadwinner.
“Our cooperation with ICE is limited to the sharing of publicly available information,” according to the Thursday evening news release from the sheriff’s office.
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.
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.
“He remained in our facility because no one posted his bond and because his state charges were not yet resolved,” according to the sheriff.
Cornejo was being held under a $25,000 secured bond. When his bond hearing concluded on July 18 – about 30 minutes after federal authorities took custody of Cornejo, according to the sheriff’s office – Cornejo’s bond was unsecured, meaning he would have been allowed to leave custody under a written promise to appear at his court date.
“Some people are unaware that being in the United States without proper documentation is NOT a crime,” Blackwood said in Thursday’s release. “A lack of proper immigration status is a civil violation of immigration law. Immigration matters are federal problems best left to federal actors. We keep individuals in our detention center when we are required to do so by the law. Keeping someone incarcerated because another agency, in this case DHS, requests us to do so does not give us legal authority to hold them. Absent additional legal authority, such as a federal judicial warrant, we do not honor detainer requests. Keeping a person without legal authority is a violation of a person’s constitutional rights.”
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 of Cornejo’s bond hearing 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.
“Violating a person’s constitutional rights is not something we do,” Blackwood said. “A detainer request is not an order issued by a federal judicial officer; it is merely a request which can be honored or not at the discretion of a sheriff. As a matter of policy, our agency does not honor detainer requests.”
Cornejo is currently being held in Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, according to the advocacy organizations planning Friday’s event.
“An agency breaking apart families doesn’t deserve any courtesy from our elected officials,” Rubi Franco Quiroz of Apoyo said in a release.
Last summer, Blackwood was also defending his department’s policy, but that time the criticism was coming from ICE itself for the sheriff’s office “refusal to honor ICE’s detainer” on a suspect.
Great job Sheriff!
As far as I can see, Sheriff is acting in a manner consistent with the policy and consistency nowadays is a rare commodity indeed. Good job Sheriff.