California lawman defends fight against sanctuary laws

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California lawman defends fight against sanctuary laws

The Orange County Sheriff's Department is publishing release dates of inmates, including illegal immigrants. Undersheriff Don Barnes explains why on 'Your World.'

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," March 28, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Meantime, the president is lending his support to Orange County officials who voted to reject that state's sanctuary laws, tweeting: 'My administration is this solidarity with the brave citizens of Orange County defending their rights against California's illegal and unconstitutional sanctuary policies. California's sanctuary laws release known dangerous people into communities across the state. All citizens have the right to be protected by federal law and strong orders.'

Now, this all happens as the Orange County Sheriff's Department has announced that it now will provide public information on when inmates will be released to enhance communication with its law enforcement partners.

Orange County Undersheriff Don Barnes with us right now.

Sheriff, thanks for taking the time.

DON BARNES, ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, UNDERSHERIFF: Thanks for having me.

CAVUTO: Where is this going right now? Because, obviously, ever since it went down in Oakland, the Oakland mayor sort of giving a heads-up to ICE raids that might be imminent, that concerned a lot of people, legal residents who might think that she was showing a disproportionate interest in those who are illegally there or even dangerous.

But now what is happening now should allow ICE to at least follow through with this stuff, right?

BARNES: Well, what we did was, we took actually language within the law. I know the attorney general made a threat. But we're actually following the law.

So, that was really a veiled threat. But we're making information, on release date information on everybody in our custody available online. We didn't differentiate between those here legally or illegally. It's something we can do and we made that information public.

CAVUTO: So when you make it public, what are you releasing?

The inmate, the details you are giving, what is it? Tell me about them.

BARNES: Well, we have always had information available on our Web site. And we simply added an additional field for everybody who is sentenced, will be released from our custody that says the date and time in which their sentence expires with the sheriff's department.

And anybody can go online and look through that list and find out who is in our custody and when they are going to be released. And that's with the intent of making that information publicly available. So, it's not identifying any individual.

CAVUTO: Have you gotten any blowback from -- I'm sorry, Sheriff.

Any blowback from state officials or those who say that this might in some way violate sanctuary policy in the state?

BARNES: Well, there was a comment made by the attorney general, which I found troubling.

CAVUTO: The state attorney general.

BARNES: It's troubling to me that -- the state attorney general, yes, who makes a comment that he may arrest sitting sheriffs who are complying with the law, while at the same time advocating for the release of convicted criminals onto the streets.

That's just -- it's troubling to us. And we have been against this legislation when it was first announced. We have been railing at the state against it. We got some of the really difficult language out. But it still -- you can't put lipstick on a pig. It's still bad policy.

And our concern is not the -- those in the community. Ours is focused on the criminals. We want to keep the criminals and should use every tool available to keep criminals accountable. And that's what we intend to do.

We're not -- we don't go into the community and do immigration enforcement on behalf of that. That's nothing we have never done. We want to protect the communities from all criminals, regardless of their immigration status.

CAVUTO: All right, Sheriff, thank you very, very much.

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