The Tehama County Sheriff’s Office has responded to a story that ran on anewscafe.com that alleged illegal cooperation with federal immigration authorities. On December 4th a married couple in their 20s went to the Tehama County Jail because the man was going to sign up for community service as part of a sentence from a recent misdemeanor conviction. The woman is a U.S. Citizen while the man is an undocumented Mexican immigrant. The man was given paperwork to fill out and was told to wait for it to be processed. The sheriff’s office says they both remained in the lobby area and were not taken into county custody. However, deputies did notify ICE Agents and allowed them time to arrive while stalling for time as the couple waited to get their county business taken care of. When the ICE Agents arrived they took the man into custody and he was deported to Mexico a few days later. The article in anewscafe says the incident was a violation of the “California Values Act” because local law enforcement is prohibited from cooperating with Federal Immigration Enforcement. The Tehama County Sheriff’s Office says that technically they did not cooperate because the man was not actually in custody and could have walked away at any time. Of course, he didn’t know the ICE Agents were coming to get him or might have left.
-Steve Gibson