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On August 18, 2022, an employee of the records department of the California Correctional Center emailed federal immigration authorities a list of people they believed would be deported. The list stated that most of the individuals named were born outside the US or had an unknown place of birth. But twelve people were listed as being born in this country.

That email was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and shared with The Times. The advocacy group says California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation staff routinely assume people in their custody are deportable immigrants, even when their own records show they are U.S. citizens or immigrants who should not be deported.

the

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while denying them rehabilitation opportunities.

The data stems from a public records request filed last year by the ACLU NorCal, which sought communication between

the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,

or CDCR, and ICE. The ACLU and other advocacy groups said they analyzed about 2,500 unique people recordings of

between

August and September 2022, in which

time

the agency transferred more than 200 people from CDCR facilities to immigration detention.

The groups d

detailed

the results in a report

be published

Tuesday, they say, describes CDCR’s practices in conjunction with ICE and provides examples of alleged actions by department staff that are discriminatory, including against immigrants.

In their zeal to work with the ICE, CDCR is targeting not only people who have served their time and are about to return home for detention and deportation, but also US citizens and Green Card holders under fire, relying on racist assumptions and ignoring their own data. , the report said.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. government Gavin Newsom’s office referred questions from The Times to CDCR. CDCR spokesperson Terri Hardy said the department is working to limit communication with ICE to only when someone enters the prison and when the release date approaches. Hardy said CDCR will check with ICE for an official determination if staff can’t determine a person’s place of birth or if information suggests the person may be an immigrant. CDCR is also working on regulations that would allow incarcerated people with ICE possession to be placed in less restrictive housing based on their behavior and program participation, Hardy said.

The report follows a lawsuit filed by the ACLU NorCal and former inmates alleging similar issues to those described in the documents. In one example described in the lawsuit, a woman who was born in California to Cambodian immigrants was referred to the ICE because state prison officials misidentified her as a Mexican immigrant.

Data from the report appears to show that some prisons have an “ICE Desk” with staff designated to facilitate the referral of incarcerated people to federal authorities.

According to the report,

if a CDCR official believes someone was born abroad, that will be triggered

a “potential” hold at intake, an internal designation established in CDCR’s manual of operations. Once someone is flagged with a potential withholding, they will be banned from lower security placements, certain jobs, and re-entry programs.

CDCR staff regularly compile ICE packs containing background information and criminal records of an individual they believe could be transferred to ICE custody,

according to the report

.

ICE will make a final decision on whether to detain the person once released from CDCR custody.

Lawyers said ICE

often

just starting to investigate

a

People’s earliest possible release date is approaching, sometimes with just days left. If ICE believes that person should be deported, CDCR will issue an arrest warrant factually” to demonstrate ICE’s intent to arrest the person upon release, according to CDCR’s operations manual.

ICE has detained and even deported US citizens. Last year, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Asian Law Caucus and ACLU NorCal settled a lawsuit with ICE over the unlawful detention of a US citizen, Brian Bukle, who had been referred to the agency by CDCR. Bukle repeatedly told ICE agents he was a U.S. citizen while held at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield for 36 days before an immigration attorney stepped in and secured his release.

Sana Singh of the ACLU NorCal said they have been reviewing the data since February and expect to receive thousands more pages of data in the coming months.

“What is reflected in this data is that CDCR is engaging in formalized discrimination,” she said. “We felt it was worth sharing now, before we have the entire universe of records.”

Documents obtained by the ACLU NorCal showed that CDCR personnel referred people to ICE despite the state’s own records showing the person was a U.S. citizen. In one email, an Avenal State Prison records technician referred someone to ICE whose records indicated he was born in California. The technician joked in an email to ICE agents inquiring about his legal status: Should we just put the US citizen on a piece of paper, fold it up and put it in a hat, then write Mexican on another piece of paper, fold it up and throw that in the hat too and pick one.

Responding to a question about the incident, Hardy said, “The email communications between a former CDCR employee at Avenal State Prison and ICE are unacceptable and inconsistent with expectations about how our staff communicate and cooperate with other law enforcement agencies. .” “We are working to ensure that our staff is properly trained and informed in handling these types of cases,” said Hardy. CDCR did not respond to other questions from The Times. like why prison officials send lists to ICE, including documented US-born inmates.

In another email sent by a criminal records supervisor at San Quentin State Prison to an ICE deportation officer 11 days before an inmate was due to be released, the supervisor said the inmates’ records indicated he was in California born.

But the regulator wrote:

Hey, that wasn’t; he was born in Mexico.”

May I ask what leads you to believe he was born in Mexico? the ICE agent asked in response.

His report from the probation officers and the information the counselors gathered when they were first admitted to prison all state that he was born in Mexico, the supervisor replied. When I reviewed his parole, I was tipped off that he doesn’t speak English.

Most people on lists sent to ICE by CDCR whose place of birth is

i

According to the report, the countries listed because the US had non-Anglo-Saxon names. ICE regularly returned forms showing that the person who referred CDCR could not be deported.

Singh said.

CDCR is asking ICE employees if this is the case

she

would like to pick one up

N

the records show that they were imprisoned even without federal authorities’ consent, and that they repeatedly took action when officers failed to respond. According to the report, state officials sometimes held detainees after their release date to verify whether ICE wanted to arrest them.

Hardy said CDCR does not hold detained people after their release date, nor can it legally do so.

A records technician at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility indicated in one email that they would wait for a response from ICE before signing a parole.

In another case, a Chuckwalla Valley State Prison records technician said an inmate had refused to talk to ICE. Still, the technician asked an ICE agent: Do you still want to arrange an interview for him? That seems to violate California law that states such interviews are voluntary.

Ny Nourn, co-director of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, recalls being disqualified from a job in the fire department and a job in wire harness manufacturing because of her ICE grip. During her annual prison assessments, officials told her she was fine. She said she had not received any fines or violations, but reminded her of the arrest. Norn, a green card holder born in Thailand to Cambodian refugees, was imprisoned for 16 years for her role in a murder committed by her former partner, who she says abused her, before being pardoned by Newsom.

After Nourn was released from the Central California Women’s Facility in 2017, he battled deportation for six months.

“There are many immigrants like me who have been transferred to ICE,” she said. “CDCR is not about rehabilitation.”

She and other advocates are calling on California lawmakers to advance the HOME Act, which would block the transfer of certain incarcerated people to ICE detention. Lawmakers rejected a precursor to that bill last year.

Assemblyman Wendy Carillo (D-Los Angeles), who sponsored the bill, said the documents obtained by the ACLU NorCal show a clear bias that requires the legislature to be accountable. “By actively cooperating with ICE and their own discriminatory language and actions, CDCR has violated public trust and their own mission to facilitate the successful return of individuals in their care,” she said.