Orange County Grand Jury • 2006-2007 • Agency Response
Response to: City of Garden Grove

City of Garden Grove Garden Grove William J. Dalton Mayor Mark Rosen Mayor Pro Tem*

Published: August 16, 2007 3 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 1 findings

F3
Cities, which contract with OCSD and Costa Mesa, have the immigration status of all booked individuals checked. Anaheim has only a part time ICE agent. However it is unclear if OC's largest cities (Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Orange, Fullerton and Garden Grove) check the immigration status of all individuals booked at their city jails. RESPONSE The City of Garden Grove partially disagrees with Finding F-3. The City of Garden Grove does not operate a jail as defined in Title 15, California Code of Regulations. By definition, the Garden Grove Police Department operates a "Temporary Holding Facility," which is defined as a "local detention facility used for the confinement of persons for 24 hours or less pending release, transfer to another facility, or appearance in court." The City of Garden Grove does not check the 平落 基準所確實でationをstatus_ of sall. individuals sheld: at the City's temporary கூறு etholding:facility. (1) நெரிக்க நார்க்க நிருக்காரமாக நிரைக்கு நிக்கும். ននឹងអុទ្ធភាពី២ ក្រុមរំពេល ។ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tem strucks of healthings of Honorable Nancy Wieben Stock August 16, 2007 This six (6) hour time frame allows for officers or investigators to photograph, fingerprint, and conduct criminal interviews of the arrestees. Arrestees are then transported to the Orange County Jail where they are formally booked, housed, or released pursuant to Orange County Jail policies. The Garden Grove Police Department also has a contract with the Huntington Beach Police Department that provides the availability of Garden Grove arrestees to be housed and detained at the Huntington Beach Jail until criminal arraignment. Persons housed at the Huntington Beach Jail are normally chronic offenders who will not be detained at the Orange County Jail due to the arrest offenses consisting of misdemeanor behavior. The policy of the Garden Grove Police Department is to handle and process arrested persons based upon their criminal behavior, not their immigration status. Since the Garden Grove Police Department does not operate a jail where persons arrested are actually housed and most persons arrested for crimes in Garden Grove are eventually booked into the Orange County Jail, it is my belief the Orange County Sheriffs Department is the ideal agency to screen inmates and determine their immigration status, if they so choose. RECOMMENDATIONS To ensure consistency within OC, the cities of Anaheim, Santa Ana,
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
Huntington Beach, Irvine, Orange, Fullerton and Garden Grove should consider entering into an agreement with ICE, or make an arrangement with OCSD, to ensure all people booked at their jails have their immigration status checked with ICE and hold UIs for ICE transport to federal facilities. (This recommendation arises from Finding F-3) RESPONSE Recommendation R-3 will not be implemented, as it is not warranted. As stated in my response to Finding F-3, the Garden Grove Police Department operates only a temporary holding facility consisting of three (3) cells. There is no medical staff, no meal facilities, nor other required amenities required of a jail to house prisoners. The Garden Grove Police Department does not have the ability to hold UI's for ICE to arrange for pick-up and transportation. I believe the policy of the Garden Grove Police Department, where persons arrested are evaluated based upon their criminal behavior, not their immigration status, is the correct policy for the residents of Garden Grove at this current time. The immigration issue must be resolved at the federal level first and appropriate resources and 7 3 Honorable Nancy Wieben Stock August 16, 2007 policies implemented accordingly before the responsibility for enforcing immigration statutes falls on local law enforcement. The resources available to the City's Police Department to ensure appropriate public safety services for the community of Garden Grove are stretched perilously thin. I also believe the enforcement of immigration statutes, without a comprehensive federal plan and resources, will erode the trust of the community we serve. The vast majority of people arrested in Garden Grove are eventually booked into the Orange County-Sheriff's-Department-jail:-At-this-time, I believe the Sheriff's Department is ideally situated to screen people booked into their facility and have their immigration status checked by the appropriate personnel. If I may be of further assistance on this or any related matter, please contact me at your convenience. Sincerely, WILLIAM J. DALTON Mayor . . . . . . . .

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.