ICE's Secret Weapon Wears a Local Badge

It's Closer to Home Than You Think.

California law is clear. SB 54 prohibits county sheriffs from holding people for ICE or transferring them outside a narrow set of qualifying convictions. Here is what is actually happening in San Luis Obispo County.

By the Sheriff's own public dashboard, updated August 21, his office received 284 requests from ICE this year, complied with 79 of them, and released 46 people to ICE. That is up from 69 releases in all of 2025, and just 1 in 2024.

Eyewitness activists, community members stationed outside the jail counting every person taken since January 1, put the total at 87 as of August 20. Not an estimate. A count, made in person, of nearly double what the Sheriff reports.

There is a second gap inside the Sheriff's own numbers. He reports complying with 79 ICE requests but releasing 46 people, and lists exactly 46 qualifying cases, his defense that every transfer was lawful. That leaves 33 instances of compliance that were not transfers and are not explained. SB 54 does not only restrict handing people over. It also restricts providing release dates and responding to hold requests.

At the January 27 TRUTH Act Forum, Sheriff Ian Parkinson confirmed that on December 14, ICE agents forced their way through a secure sally-port door to arrest someone during their release. Only one supervisor called his account accurate. Residents who packed the four-hour meeting disputed it directly.

Rather than take responsibility, the Sheriff published video shot by an ICE officer on his own department's Instagram, framing protesters as criminals under Penal Code 602.1. Supervisor Bruce Gibson told him his office should have posted its own footage instead of ICE's. He accepted material from the agency he insists he does not work with, then used it to discredit the people documenting that relationship.

A San Luis Obispo Tribune investigation reviewed internal Sheriff's Office records, ICE email exchanges, and DHS requests, all authenticated by the Sheriff's Office itself. It found the office failed to notify at least three inmates that ICE had requested them before releasing them, a direct violation of state notification law. Those records surfaced only because community members monitoring the jail filed Public Records Act requests, remaining anonymous to avoid federal retaliation.

The Sheriff's Office responded on July 28 that it acted in full compliance with SB 54 in every case the Tribune examined, and that state confidentiality law prevents it from discussing the individuals involved. That answer does not address the finding. The Tribune did not question whether those people had criminal histories. It documented that the office failed to notify them ICE had requested them, which the TRUTH Act requires regardless of what any record contains.

After reviewing the Tribune's findings, attorney Jehan Laner of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center formally called on both the SLO County Board of Supervisors and the California Attorney General's Office to investigate the Sheriff's Office for compliance with state law.

The Board voted 3-2 on April 8 to ban ICE from commandeering county property and to require judicial warrants for non-public spaces. Activists have documented three violations since. A second resolution in June restated the same promises. Neither has closed the gap between the 46 releases the Sheriff reports and the 87 abductions residents have counted in person.

SB 54 is not the only law the Sheriff refuses to enforce. County policy bars weapons beyond the jail's parking lot and again at the lobby door, with no exception for federal officers. Every other law enforcement agency that enters the jail locks its weapons in the vehicle first. ICE does not, and the Sheriff does not enforce it.

This is not confined to one county. Santa Barbara's sheriff reported 12 ICE transfers for 2025; an outside newsroom using ICE's own arrest data found nearly 100 at county jail locations that year. Monterey reported 21 ICE requests before a follow-up revealed 295. The ACLU has sued Sacramento County's sheriff over illegal ICE notifications. Every number that broke did so only after someone outside the sheriff's office started counting.

Every one of these counties has a sheriff who took the same oath. Not to ICE. Not to a federal agenda. To the law of the State of California and to the people who live under it.

In the case of SLO County, Sheriff Parkinson has decided which parts of that oath he intends to honor. SB 54 is not a suggestion. It is the law, passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, upheld in federal court. When a sheriff decides which laws he will follow and which he will quietly work around, he is not exercising discretion. He is deciding that the rules do not apply to him.

A sheriff is not appointed. He is elected, and he answers to the voters who put him in office. The Attorney General has the authority to investigate and to compel compliance. The Board of Supervisors controls his budget. And every one of us has a ballot.

The Sheriff has already said in writing that he would fully cooperate with an Attorney General review and provide information he cannot legally disclose to the public. He should be held to that. The Attorney General should open the review, examine all 79 instances of compliance rather than only the 46 transfers, and publish what it finds. If the numbers hold up, the Sheriff will be vindicated. If they do not, the voters of this county will know what to do with a sheriff who would not follow the law he swore to uphold.

Submitted on behalf of:
Cambria Indivisible
Estero Bay Indivisible
ICE Out of SLO County
ICE Out of SLO County documents ICE activity at the county jail at iceoutofslocounty.org
Indivisible Arroyo Grande
Indivisible Avila Beach
Indivisible North SLO County
Indivisible SLO Coalition
Indivisible SLO County