Marin County Sheriff Jamie Scardina announced at a meeting last week that he began limiting his discretionary collaboration with ICE in August but continues to provide information about incarcerated people to the federal agency.
Until last year, the sheriff’s office responded to ICE requests about people booked into the county jail on charges for serious or violent crimes—prior to conviction. Now, the jail responds to ICE only when an individual has a prior conviction for such an offense or has been ordered by a judge to stand trial on serious charges.
A crowd of approximately 200 attendees at the TRUTH Act Forum seemed unimpressed by the sheriff’s policy change. Most of the dozens who spoke during public comment demanded that Scardina stop all ICE assistance immediately, including posting the release dates of all incarcerated people on a public website.
California’s Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds (TRUTH) Act requires that a community forum take place annually if local law enforcement provided ICE with access to individuals during the last year.
According to Scardina, ICE becomes aware of whom is in the county jail because state law requires the sheriff’s office to send identifying information for every incarcerated individual to the Department of Justice, which shares the data with other federal agencies.
In 2025, ICE issued 147 detainer requests to the Marin County Jail. The detainer request, Form I-247, asks the jail for notification before releasing a person who ICE wants to place in custody.
The jail responded to 23 ICE requests last year, up from 14 in 2024. Scardina attributed the 64% increase to the higher number of jail bookings year over year.
ICE also seeks the release dates of the people they want to detain. That data appears on the Marin County Jail’s public website. Scardina maintains that providing this information benefits victims, who want to “keep track of their offenders.”
Nevertheless, it also hands ICE the release date of every person in the jail. Community members point to a state-supported program, Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE), that provides release dates in a searchable database. The sheriff said that he doesn’t mind the redundancy between VINE and the jail’s booking log website.
But Scardina also wants Marin residents to know what he doesn’t do.
“A lot of people, because of misinformation, think that we do conduct raids, or we do conduct sweeps, or we do ask somebody’s immigration status,” Scardina said in an interview with the Pacific Sun. “It’s not legal for us to do those things.”
Senate Bill 54 prevents local resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement. Additionally, it states that local law enforcement can only cooperate with immigration authorities when a person has been arrested for or convicted of serious crimes listed in the bill.
It is the nature of the crimes enumerated in SB 54 that troubles Scardina and drives his collaboration with ICE. The sheriff referred to offenses including theft, burglary, evading arrest, cruelty to a child, false imprisonment, domestic violence, firearm offenses, robbery, kidnapping and sex crimes.
“That’s why I choose to contact ICE,” Scardina said. “I’m in the business of public safety, right? It’s my responsibility to keep the residents and community of Marin County safe. And if there is a serious and violent offender who meets the criteria under SB 54 under those predicate crimes, that’s what allows me to notify ICE.”
“Choose” is the key word. And community members like Curt Ries, co-chair of the Marin County Democratic Socialists of America, believe that Scardina’s cooperation with ICE aids the Trump administration in violating democratic doctrines. At the same time, Ries acknowledges that those accused of crimes should be held to answer.
“We’re not asking for these people to be exonerated,” Ries told the Pacific Sun. “We’re not asking for them to evade justice. We’re asking for them to go through the normal criminal justice process that all of us deserve under the law—equal due process. And that basic principle is being fundamentally threatened by sending these people over to ICE, where they can be detained and deported.”
At the forum, some members of the Board of Supervisors also expressed concerns about the sheriff’s policies, such as providing release dates on a public website. Supervisor Mary Sackett suggested that a searchable database could replace posting the booking log on the jail website. This system would still allow victims to access release dates.
Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said that he probably represents the most immigrants in the community. And he wants to get the number of times the sheriff’s office collaborates with ICE down to zero.
However, Scardina’s policies have improved, Rodoni said in a written response to questions from the Pacific Sun.
“The Sheriff has implemented the Board’s recommendation from last year to report data only on individuals with convictions or held over for trial by a judge for a predicate crime, rather than those with charges alone,” Rodoni said. “That reflects progress.”
For many Marin residents, these changes are not enough. More than 6,100 people have signed a petition calling for Scardina to cease all aid to ICE.
Despite the large turnout at the TRUTH Act Forum and thousands of petition signatures, some people agree with Scardina’s policies. Three spoke up during the forum’s public comment period, and the sheriff has heard from others.
“I don’t think everybody thinks the way a lot of the activists do,” Scardina said. “And I know that because I get emails and telephone calls from people who tell me to continue to put information on the website and tell me to continue to notify ICE about serious and violent offenders.”
At the end of the day, Scardina, an elected official, makes the policy for his office. The Board of Supervisors has no authority over his decisions. Yet some community members have noted that the supervisors do have control over the sheriff’s budget and could use the purse strings to influence Scardina’s choice to collaborate with ICE.
Rodoni rejects the idea.
“This is not a budget issue,” he said. “It is about maintaining an ongoing and constructive dialogue between the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff to ensure that Board direction and community expectations are being met. These conversations are essential to public trust and to ensuring residents have meaningful engagement with their elected officials.”
