photo credit: ShutterstockThe Department of Homeland Security's office in Santa Clara.
Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram said he met with the federal Department of Homeland Security new field director for removal operations earlier this month. Engram said his name is Sergio Albarran and his territory includes the Bay Area.
While some of that conversation has been reported, KRCB News has learned new details.
According to Engram, the San Francisco office has been given a quota for immigration arrests. The office covers a region that spans from Santa Clara up to the Oregon border to Hawaii and Guam.
Engram was told Sonoma County would be spared of immigration actions, for now, while DHS focuses on more heavily populated areas.
"I was told that I should not be expecting any sort of large-scale immigration roundups or raids or anything of that nature," said Engram, "but what he did caveat that with was, those are my orders today."
DHS has been under pressure to ramp up immigration arrests. In May, Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News that DHS would hit a goal of 3,000 arrests per day.
But they haven't come close. Since July, the agency has made an average of 1000 arrests a day according to “TRAC” a non-partisan research center at Syracuse University.
Sergio Albarran couldn’t be reached for comment.
Engram said DHS typically gives the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office a 15-to-20-minute notice before an immigration operation.
But "we would not take any action," Engram said, because the sheriff's office doesn’t interfere with federal law enforcement actions.
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