San Francisco will be the first county in California to implement this type of policy.

No laws are being broken with this policy as there are no requirements for local jails to hold illegal immigrants. Rather, it will be reinforcing San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance, which does not allow local officials to assist ICE unless a felony is involved.

Federal officials have managed to work around the sanctuary city policies with a program called Secure Communities, where ICE monitors fingerprint data obtained at booking and putting “detainers” on potential illegal immigrants.

For now, sheriff’s deputies are holding low-level criminals until ICE agents come to collect them. As soon as the policy takes effect, though, those inmates will be released with a citation, the same as a U.S. citizen.

ICE spokeswoman, Virginia Kice, called Sheriff Hennessey’s decision to release inmates unfortunate.

“ICE detainers are an effective tool to ensure that individuals arrested on criminal charges, who are also in violation of U.S. immigration law, are not released back into the community to potentially commit more crimes,” she said.

ICE also revealed that since May 2009, they have taken approximately 48,000 convicted illegal alien criminals into custody as a result of the identification process resulting from the program. Furthermore, of that 48,000 arrestees – 23,712 of the defendants have been deported from the United States. Apparently, more than 10,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported just from the Secure Communities Program alone.

Not only is the program being instilled across the state of California, but National Security is also implementing the program. Homeland Security records will be matched along with arrestees fingerprints, so if a match is made, immigration officials will be informed.

Secure Communities Acting Assistant Director, Marc Rapp said, “Secure Communities is improving and modernizing the identification and removal of criminal aliens. It is a major step forward in ICE’s efforts to work with local law enforcement in California and across the country to prevent criminal aliens from being released to our streets.”

However, the program is facing some criticism from immigrant advocates who think that involving police with immigrations enforcement makes immigrants less likely to report any crime.

Tom Ammiano, California Assemblyman, recently revealed a bill that could cancel the agreement between the ICE and California, unless counties are able to refuse to be a part of the program, because Ammiano and others feel that the program will negatively impact the relationships between immigrant communities and law enforcement.

The ICE program was originally only a voluntary program, however, when counties began to opt out, they changed the program to involuntary.

Orange County jail officials will join 11 other California county jails such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura which have already implemented procedures for checking the identification of inmates using a federal database to identify immigrants who land in their jails.

A national database, which is maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, houses fingerprints of those who’ve had contact with the department, such as having applied for any immigration benefits. The national program implemented in late 2008 will now be used to identify and deport any undocumented immigrants who’ve been arrested and jailed.

The Secure Communities Initiative has identified 18,000 immigrants who have been charged with offenses such as murder and kidnapping)since its inception. 4,000 of those offenders have since been deported. Additionally, 25,000 immigrants who have been charged with lesser crimes have also been deported.

The Orange County Jail already has one of the longest processing time for defendants. There is no word on how this may effect release times for those posting bail.

To halt the potential spread of Swine Flu at an Otay Mesa Jail in San Diego, immigrant inmates are being quarantined. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials report that while these inmates wait for their day in court, two more cases of the Swine Flu were confirmed.  Those two cases have since recovered and have been returned to the general population.

The quarantine is for observation. Those scheduled for an upcoming court hearing have to wait. “Detainees under quarantine are removed from the active calendar,” states Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

This subject sparks heated discussion among some of the attorneys who represent these detainees. The immigrants being held are not being allowed to go to court.  Even for those who have not fallen ill.

These are individuals waiting for immigration hearings. Attorney Sean Riordan states “when you’re talking about someone who has been in detention for some time, it is a devastating thing for a client to hear that you are going to be stuck in what amounts to a prison for other weeks or months.”

The quarantine is generally a period of a week. Even when inmates are released and allowed to go to immigration court, court officials are requiring written confirmation from ICE that the client has been cleared. Eventually, inmates are scheduled for available hearing dates when the court receives notice all quarantines are lifted.