Marin supervisors to consider ‘sanctuary’ policy demand

Marin Independent Journal article by: Richard Halstead

Under pressure from activists, the Marin County Board of Supervisors plans to take up a request to declare the county an immigrant “sanctuary” jurisdiction.

Supervisor Katie Rice, the president of the board, announced it would discuss the matter at either its Sept. 15 or Sept. 22 meeting after the activists monopolized the supervisors’ meeting earlier this week with their public comments.

“We are really demanding that our board implement a sanctuary county ordinance to protect the rights and lives of immigrants,” Yavar Amidi, an advocacy director for ICE Out of Marin, said on Wednesday.

Lucia Martel-Dow, director of immigration legal services at the Canal Alliance, said Canal Alliance would like to see the supervisors declare Marin a sanctuary county.

“It’s a symbolic gesture that could translate into further more progressive policies,” Martel-Dow said.

She added, however, that Doyle recently has made a series of incremental changes that reduced the number of Marin residents being picked up by ICE.

“We absolutely recognize the progress that the sheriff has made,” Martel-Dow said. “That is not something we can just sweep under the rug.”

In December 2018, at the request of Canal Alliance, Doyle stopped supplying ICE with inmate release date information unless the inmate had been charged with or convicted of a serious or violent crime. As a result, the number of release dates supplied to ICE dropped to 27 in 2019, down from 75 in 2018.

Read the rest of this article on Marin Independent Journal website.