Solano sheriff discusses 2025 ICE interactions at Board of Supervisors meeting

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FAIRFIELD – Solano County Sheriff Bradley DeWall told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning that his office notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the release of a jail inmate nine times last year. 

DeWall said that the sheriff’s office is required to hold a public community forum if the agency has provided ICE access to any individual in their custody in the prior year. DeWall said they haven’t held these forums for the last few years because they didn’t have any data to report, “But this past year has changed that.” 

The sheriff’s office booked 11,600 people at the Justice Center Detention Facility in Fairfield in 2025. Out of those arrests, ICE sent the sheriff’s office an “immigration detainer” for 181 people, which is a request that ICE sends to local law enforcement to hold a person of interest for up to 48 hours past their release time in order to book them into ICE custody. 

DeWall said that of those 181, only nine people fit their criteria for sharing information with ICE. The sheriff’s department did not hold the nine people past their scheduled release date, but they notified ICE of their release.

Out of those nine, just one person was transferred to ICE custody in 2025. DeWall emphasized that the person's detention was a result of a judicial warrant signed by a federal judge. 

DeWall explained that the sheriff’s office operates under several overlapping pieces of legislation that dictate how they cooperate with ICE.

California is considered a sanctuary state due to 2018’s Senate Bill 54 — also known as the California Values Act — which prohibits local law enforcement agencies from using resources for federal immigration enforcement. It also restricts local authorities from detaining individuals solely for civil immigration violations or from sharing certain personal information with federal agents.

Additionally, in 2014, California passed the TRUST Act, which states that local law enforcement will not hold individuals past their scheduled release date and will not notify ICE of arrests unless that person has a “serious prior record.” California lawmakers also passed the TRUTH Act in 2017, which states that local law enforcement has to tell someone in custody if ICE has requested access to them.

“When you start to look at SB 54 and the laws surrounding it, it’s very complex about when we can cooperate, and we have a very comprehensive policy and a matrix that we follow in each situation,” DeWall said. But to summarize, he said, when they do share information it’s “based on a lot of violent crime and public safety issues.” 

DeWall explained that communications with federal agencies begin when someone is arrested, booked, and fingerprinted. The fingerprints are sent automatically to the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI. If any of those departments have an interest in an individual, they request information from the sheriff’s office. DeWall said his office then goes through a decision matrix to decide if they will cooperate with the request or not. 

The laws require that the sheriff’s office provide the person who is the subject of the federal request consent forms in their language, show them and their representative any documents they’ve received from ICE, and notify them if they intend to comply with an ICE request. 

Supervisor Wanda Williams asked for clarification about the nine individuals. DeWall explained that only nine people fit the criteria laid out by the three laws. It’s unclear why ICE was interested in the other 172 individuals. 

“We can only speak to those nine, those are the only ones we will cooperate with,” DeWall said. He added that they “don’t hold anybody past their release dates.”

The supervisors mentioned the Vallejo Sun’s reporting last week that ICE had been in Vallejo at least 21 times in 2025, based on notices sent to the city’s police department. Williams asked if there’s been any ICE activity in her district, which covers Fairfield and Suisun City.

DeWall said that “all law enforcement agencies will get notices, typically, if [ICE] is conducting some type of operation in our area,” but added that “it’s not required, they don’t have to.” 

“They do it to de-conflict, to avoid a critical incident with ourselves,” DeWall added. “They have had activities within many of our cities in Solano County, and they will notice the agencies accordingly.” 

According to public records obtained by the Sun, the police departments of Fairfield and Suisun City did not receive any notices from ICE that they would be in the community. But a representative for North Bay Rapid Response, an activist group that tracks ICE encounters, said that they were aware of 12 detentions in Fairfield and one in Suisun City in 2025.