Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram does not support a proposed ordinance that bans all collaboration with ICE, and his department has worked with ICE in recent years. Protesters want him to change course.

There may be a battle afoot between Sonoma County supervisors and the sheriff, as Sheriff Eddie Engram appears to be standing his ground about a non-collaboration-with-ICE ordinance which has not yet been passed. As KPIX reports, protesters outside an event the sheriff was attending on Thursday say that he has spoken out publicly against the proposed ordinance, and that he says he won't comply with it even if it is passed.

Engram's department, as many law enforcement agencies do, informs Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) whenever an individual is released from jail who was accused or convicted of a serious, violent offense. As required by state law — California’s 2016 Truth Act — agencies must be transparent with the public about these disclosures.

In 2023, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said it had 14,951 bookings into the Sonoma County jail, and ICE made requests for information in 492 of these cases. The sheriff's department complied with 72 of these, where the accused suspect had allegedly committed a violent offense. Data for 2024 doesn't appear to have been made public yet.

Tensions over this issue in Sonoma County date back well before the election of Donald Trump. In 2023, activists were raising alarm bells over 2022 data about ICE information requests, showing that compliance with ICE requests had risen 64 percent over the previous year.

Engram's office gave a terse statement to KPIX in response to Thursday's protest, saying that the sheriff's department complies with all state laws and is committed to transparency, under state law.

One of the protest organizers, Santa Rosa immigrant advocate Renee Saucedo, tells KPIX that advocates want more of a commitment from the sheriff, particularly in the face of Trump's threats about mass deportations.

"You need to support the non-collaboration with ICE policy," Saucedo said, addressing Engram via KPIX's cameras. "If you don't our community will not report crimes, we won't serve as witnesses and we won't trust the county at any level from services or for benefits."

Engram has previously said that he is only trying to balance his approach to satisfy all members of the community.

"As many times as I hear we should not work with ICE, I hear we should be working with ICE more," Engram said at county board of supervisors forum last year, per the Press Democrat. "That’s not something that I’m necessarily interested in, but I do hear those things. It’s a difficult balance to work with when trying to keep the community safe."

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors passed a non-binding resolution in January, pledging their commitment to protecting the civil rights of undocumented immigrants and prohibiting county staff from collaborating with ICE to locate or detain undocumented people. They have stopped short of banning the practice of informing ICE about the release of individuals suspected of violence, and they have not yet passed an ordinance on the matter.

"Immigrants are valued and integral members of our community, our social fabric and our local economy,” said Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, chair of the Board of Supervisors, in a January statement. “This resolution makes it clear that County government will uphold the civil rights of undocumented immigrants like we would for any other member of our community.”

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Top image: Photo by Bryan Cox/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images