President Donald Trump’s immigration initiative rollout is giving Santa Barbara County officials whiplash.
Two weeks ago, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a report accusing the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office of “potentially endangering Americans” by releasing an inmate convicted of forgery. A few days later, ICE field director David Marin called Sheriff Bill Brown to apologize for the “error.” It turned out the inmate was not from Santa Barbara.
But less than a week later, ICE besmirched Santa Barbara again. The next report, which is updated weekly, accused the county of being among the top 10 worst offenders in the country for failing to cooperate with federal law enforcement on “a routine basis” during a one-week period in early February.