With the recent murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, concerned citizens around the country may be asking themselves, “How would have Francisco Sanchez been handled by my sheriff’s department?”
Hernando County was labeled as a sanctuary county for illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds by the Center for Immigration Studies. You can find their interactive map at: :http://cis.org/Sanctuary-Cities-Map
Hernando Sun inquired of the HCSO what their policy is on detaining illegal immigrants. Denise Moloney, Public Information Officer for HCSO stated, “First, this nonofficial group falsely labeled Hernando County as a sanctuary city due to the fact that we require probable cause supported by an affidavit or a warrant from a judge to hold a suspected alien. Upsetting to this organization, is that we refuse to violate the United States or Florida Constitution in detaining any individual without probable cause as required by the Fourth Amendment. This measure is required to hold any person in a jail prior to sentencing or official charging.” She also explained that their policy is rooted in relevant case law, providing three cases.
She then stated, “Accordingly, if HCSO is presented with a sworn affidavit supported by probable cause from a federal or state agency or a duly executed warrant requesting detention, we steadfastly do so. To do otherwise would subject this county and it’s citizens to liability unnecessarily. The cases cited above all resulted in local agency liability because detention of such individuals occurred based solely on an ICE detainer request which was not supported by probable cause.”
This is the information we have so far. Questions remain as to how would someone with Sanchez’s background be handled by the HCSO department prior to the murder.
Originally, Sanchez was picked up on a felony warrant for drug charges outstanding since 1995. A court dismissed the charges the next day and Sanchez was released 18 days later after finding no additional outstanding warrants or judicial orders. When he was released, deputies did not notify ICE since they did not have a warrant or legal order to do so. If they had, ICE claims they would have picked him up and would have deported him again. ICE says that there is not a legal requirement for them to provide a judicial warrant to law enforcement for notification purposes. SF Sheriff Mirkarimi said it would have violated the Fourth Amendment under unreasonable searches and seizures to have notified ICE.
Is 5 previous deportations enough probable cause for HCSO to detain an individual with this background?
If not, upon release would HCSO notify ICE or do they also require a warrant to do so? These are questions we posed to Ms. Moloney and are awaiting her response.
UPDATE: After reposing the question as “Given that the HCSO is aware of an individual’s illegal immigrant status through previous deportations, do you detain for ICE?” We received a phone call from Ms. Moloney who stated after speaking with their attorney, “Rest assured we are not a sanctuary county, what we’re going to do is follow the law in every instance. If an individual comes to Hernando County and breaks the law they will receive no sanctuary.”