Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar says the Appeals Court ruling allowing the State of Texas to enforce portions of the law outlawing Sanctuary Cities which cover honoring immigration 'detainers' will be business as usual for his officers, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Salazar says the sheriff has to follow the law."I'm the sheriff, I don't have that discretion," he said. "I can't say, 'well, I don't feel like enforcing speeding today, so I'm not going to'."
He says his office has always attempted to honor detainer requests from immigration officials when those detainers are lawful, and he says Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also changed its policy to make sure all laws are followed.
"We have taken the additional step of requesting from ICE that whenever they send a detainer, don't send it alone, send a warrant along with it, and ICE has been doing that, so it has been a good process for us so far."
A 'detainer' is a request from immigration officials to continue to detain somebody who is held in a county jail but it set to be released, either on bond or because the individual's period of confinement is over, so the individual can be held for potential deportation.
The request for a warrant means a judge has signed off on the detainer request.
One of the biggest concerns of people who opposed S.B. 4, the bill that outlawed 'Sanctuary Cities' was that a detainer may request a hold on the wrong person, or that ICE will request to 'detain' only Hispanics, and they will be held improperly.
Another objection raised by opponents of S.B. 4 is that county jails are meant to house criminals who have violated local laws, and are not supposed to be used to hold people facing federal offenses. Salazar says ICE routinely arrives to pick up detained inmates within five hours of issuing the detainer requests, making that less of an issue.
Salazar says ICE issues detainer requests fairly frequently, and it is his policy to comply with lawful requests from other law enforcement officials. He points out that innocent people are never the subject of 'detainer' requests.'
"Some days there are zero, some days there are five, so it all depends, but people who are in my jail are there because of something else," he said.