Construction on the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Santa Maria is nearly complete and on schedule, according to ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley, who added that the facility should be operational by this summer.
The new facility, sited near West McCoy Lane and South Depot Street, will be used for interviewing and briefly holding undocumented inmates coming into ICE custody after being released from jails and prisons in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. It will replace the field office inside Lompoc’s federal prison that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations has used since 1996.
Haley emphasized that the new ICE building isn’t a detention facility but will be used for processing “criminal aliens,” including those with violent conviction histories. She said anyone held for more than 12 hours will be transferred to a detention facility.
Organizers on the Central Coast and in Santa Maria are concerned that the facility will eventually turn into long-term facility.
David Rodriguez, the California president for the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said his group has been monitoring the facility since the beginning. Around 1,200 city residents showed up to the Santa Maria City Council meeting in March 2014 to protest the council’s 3-2 decision to approve construction on the new facility.
Rodriguez, who lives in Oxnard, told the Sun that he believes it will encourage law enforcement to root out undocumented individuals in the area.
“Our local chapters have been opposed to this since day one because they think it’s a drive to pick up people,” Rodriguez said. “As prisoners grow, the facility could change its use.”
However, officials from the Santa Maria Police Department said they don’t actively look at the immigration status of people they detain; such information is only determined once a person has been arrested and booked into custody.
But Willie Galvan, the vice president for LULAC’s Santa Maria Council, is skeptical, as is Rodriguez. Both said that people can be profiled for the color of their skin and immigration status.
“It doesn’t always hold water with us given the experience we have nationwide with that issue,” Rodriguez said. “We hope what they’re saying is correct.”
Galvan and Rodriguez said they want to work with ICE officials to be able to inspect the facility once it’s operational.
“We’d like to be able to monitor it in some way or another in the months or the years to come,” Galvan said.
