California passed a law that was supposed to prevent the police from notifying ICE about illegal aliens in its custody.  The idea is that illegals arrested for crimes could be released without ICE learning about them, like ships passing in the night.

The problem is that sheriffs, by their nature, aren't happy with the idea of illegal aliens, especially illegal aliens who have been convicted of additional crimes, roaming around California on their own.  So some sheriffs in the most liberal places are exploiting a loophole in California's law to let ICE know about the illegal aliens they have in custody.

Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle is complying with requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the release dates of inmates suspected to be undocumented immigrants [sic].

SB 54 prohibits local law enforcement agencies from supplying inmate release dates to ICE generally.  The law, however, provides two exceptions.  First, if the inmate was convicted of a serious crime or one of several high crime misdemeanors, and second, if the release date is "available to the public."

Soon after SB 54 became law, the Marin County Sheriff's Office began posting the release dates of all inmates on its website.  The Chronicle story notes that Orange, Contra Costa and Alameda counties also began posting the information this year.

Marin, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties are some of the most liberal counties in California.  Marin, just north of San Francisco, is heavily Democratic; Contra Costa County encompasses Richmond, which is so dangerous that it makes San Francisco look safe and law-abiding by comparison; and Alameda encompasses Oakland and Berkeley, which would secede to form a dictatorship of the proletariat if they could.

In February, Canal Alliance, a nonprofit serving San Rafael's predominately Latino neighborhood, issued a report on the Marin County Sheriff's Office's cooperation with ICE after obtaining documents under the California Public Records Act.  The report stated that "the primary way that people find themselves in deportation proceedings is through contact with the local criminal system."

So the Canal Alliance complains that people are deported after having "contact" with the "criminal system."  Essentially, the organization is saying that even repeat criminal illegal aliens should not be deported.

Omar Carrera, Canal Alliance's executive director, said in Marin driving under the influence, domestic violence, and driving without a license are three examples of offenses that people whose release dates have been shared with ICE have committed.

"We're not talking about people who have committed terrible crimes," Carrera said.

Beating your spouse and drunk driving are not terrible crimes?

On Tuesday, Doyle said ICE took 65 to 67 former Marin County inmates into custody in 2017.  According to last week's Chronicle story, from the first of the year to May 1, ICE has requested 61 release notifications from the Sheriff's Office and all but six have been granted, or about 90 percent.  The story said the compliance percentages during roughly the same period were 29 percent for Alameda County and 42 percent for conservative San Diego County.

It's amazing that sheriffs, who are elected, are doing the right thing, even under pressure from the state and the local illegal alien lobby to do otherwise.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.