Sheriff vows to drop grant that gave federal officials information on undocumented inmates

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Chris Clark vowed to no longer apply for a grant that provides federal officials with information on undocumented people incarcerated in Santa Cruz County jails.

Clark said he had known about the Department of Justice grant for only three to four weeks after a concerned citizen emailed him about the county’s participation in the program, prompting his staff to investigate.

“I took it seriously,” Clark said in an interview with Lookout last week. “I looked into it and came to the conclusion this just wasn’t something I wanted to be involved with.”

The grant, known as the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), awarded Santa Cruz County over $78,000 last year to cover the hours correctional officers spent with undocumented people in county jails. According to online records, Santa Cruz County received $85,688 from the program in 2022, $92,910 in 2023 and $78,581 last year.

SCAAP applications require each inmate’s first, middle and last names, date of birth, foreign country of birth, date taken into custody, date released and unique inmate number assigned by the applicant. If known, the Alien Registration Number and FBI number associated with the inmate are also required.

In order to qualify as hours to put toward the grant, the person incarcerated has to be convicted of one felony or two misdemeanors, and must have remained in the county jail for at least four consecutive days during the 12-month reporting period. 

While Clark couldn’t give a figure to estimate how often undocumented people are in the county’s jails, he said it does happen — and frequently enough for the county to have received a significant amount of funding. He said incarceration demographics tend to reflect a cross-section of the population.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently sent letters to multiple counties in California that have opted out of participating in SCAAP, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, urging them to produce data on undocumented immigrants in their jails and threatening to force them into giving up such information if necessary. 

Clark said one of the reasons he was uncomfortable with the grant was because there was no way to know how the information provided to the Department of Justice was being used by federal officials, or if it went to immigration enforcement departments.

Santa Cruz County is home to some 19,500 undocumented people, whom county officials have vowed to protect on several occasions, including when the board of supervisors reaffirmed the county’s sanctuary status following the election of President Donald Trump last November.

Just a few months prior, the money from SCAAP had been approved for Santa Cruz County, to be factored into this year’s budget.

Paul Johnston, a sociologist whose work fighting for protections for immigrants in the county spans decades, applauded the sheriff for canceling the program immediately upon hearing about it.

“I think his decision to cancel participation as soon as he learned was commendable and really reflects, to me, the unprecedented level of solidarity all the way from the grassroots up to the highest levels of county government in our region,” Johnston said. “We really are a sanctuary community.”

Johnston said his initial reaction to learning of the program was a knee-jerk negative, referencing the violation of trust in the city’s sanctuary laws. But after he learned of the sheriff’s swift action, he believes this is all the more reason to put trust in Santa Cruz County’s officials. 

Sanctuary designations were historically associated with churches and grassroots organizations who were dedicated to protecting immigrants, Johnston said, but now the concept of declaring sanctuary has been made official through city, county and state policies. 

Johnston also noted that the board of supervisors’ declaration of Santa Cruz as a sanctuary county has no legal hold over the sheriff’s office. After finding out about his office’s participation in SCAAP last month, Clark said he asked the county’s legal counsel to review the grant. They found the participation in the program to be completely legal, but that didn’t change his concerns about pursuing the grant in the future.

Clark began his term last December following the mid-term retirement of the previous sheriff, Jim Hart. He was appointed unanimously by the board of supervisors. Clark said he and Hart never discussed the grant before he assumed the position as sheriff, nor during Clark’s 18-year tenure with the department, and he had not come across it until three or four weeks ago. Clark said he wouldn’t speculate as to Hart’s knowledge of the grant. 

Any costs the grant money used to offset will now ultimately have to be paid out of the county’s general fund, but Clark said he does not think the sum the county was awarded is significant enough that it can’t be overcome. 

Calling the grant program “obscure,” Johnston said he has faith that if the issue was brought up at any point in recent years, any sheriff would have responded in the same way, given the potential that SCAAP had to damage immigrant communities.

“I think knowing that there has been a program that implicitly provides an incentive to target people who are here without papers, certainly it has to heighten people’s fear and limit their trust,” Johnston said.

He added that this is why the sheriff’s move to discontinue the program before lasting fear spread was crucial. 

In keeping with recent statements, Clark said sheriff’s deputies and correctional officers will never ask questions about immigration status and are there to serve every person residing in Santa Cruz County.

“I just want to let the public know that I empathize with the apprehension, anxiety and fear that’s going on in different communities in our county,” Clark said. “We are committed to protecting people and making sure that we’re responding to help people when needed.”

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