SLO County Sheriff’s Office to share data about ICE at forum. How to attend
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will host a public forum Tuesday to explain the Sheriff’s Office’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities after activists urged the agency for greater transparency in December.
After only one San Luis Obispo County Jail inmate was transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2024, the Sheriff’s Office released 69 inmates to ICE custody in 2025, according to a county staff report.
The Sheriff’s Office will present this data and more at the meeting.
“We do have concern with how ICE is conducting its business and violating the constitution,” Supervisor Jimmy Paulding said during the Jan. 6 board meeting.
“I understand the community wants to see more accountability in terms of compliance with state law and the Sheriff’s interaction with ICE,” he said. “I believe that the forum — the Truth Act forum coming up on the 27th — would be a very good opportunity to look at that data.”
California’s Transparent Review of Unjust Transfers and Holds Act, also called the Truth Act, requires SLO County to hold “at least one” community forum if the Sheriff’s Office transfers inmates to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a given year. That forum must occur at some point during the following year with at least 30 days advance notice to the public, the law said.
At the forum, deputies will present data from the 2024 and 2025 calendar years. The Sheriff’s Office will be available to answer questions from the Board of Supervisors, as well as receive and consider public comment.
The Truth Act forum will take place at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Katcho Achadjian Government Center in San Luis Obispo, according to a county news release.
The last Truth Act forum was on Jan. 16, 2024, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tony Cipolla previously told The Tribune.
Sheriff’s Office boosted compliance with ICE requests in 2025
When the Sheriff’s Office books an inmate into the San Luis Obispo County Jail, a deputy takes the inmate’s fingerprint and enters it into state and federal databases to identify them, Sheriff Ian Parkinson said at a League of Women Voters webinar in November.
If the inmate is undocumented, the database will notify ICE of the inmate’s location. Then, ICE can send an immigration detainer to the Sheriff’s Office. A detainer asks the sheriff to notify ICE before the inmate is released from jail, or to hold the inmate in custody for 48 hours longer than usual, so ICE has time to pick them up.
Senate Bill 54 prohibits the Sheriff’s Office from holding any inmate longer than usual, but the law does allow the sheriff to transfer inmates to ICE if they have a federal arrest warrant or qualifying convictions for certain crimes, including murder, sexual assault, unlawful possession of a firearm and other serious or violent felonies.
From September to December 2024, ICE submitted 111 requests to the Sheriff’s Office, the staff report said. Those communications included detainers and requests for the transfer of an inmate or an interview with an inmate.
The Sheriff’s Office did not comply with any of these requests, the staff report said.
However, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation arranged the transfer of one San Luis Obispo County Jail inmate to ICE, and the Sheriff’s Office released one inmate to the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s Office to comply with a warrant from the U.S. District Court, the staff report said.
The Sheriff’s Office drastically increased its compliance with ICE requests in 2025.
Last year, ICE submitted 287 requests to the Sheriff’s Office, the staff report said. The Sheriff’s Office complied with 83 of those requests.
In 2025, the Sheriff’s Office released 69 inmates to ICE custody. Of those inmates, 15 were turned over based on federal warrants, the staff report said.
The staff report also noted four “pending releases” under the “federal warrants” section, but did not provide further clarification.
How to attend the Truth Act Forum
The forum will start at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, at the Board of Supervisors Chambers at the Katcho Achadjian Government Center, 1055 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo, the release said.
Community members can submit written comments through email or address the board in person, the release said.
Spanish translators will be present to interpret public comments that are made in person.
A large crowd is expected to attend the forum, county spokesperson Jeanette Trompeter told The Tribune. Community members who don’t find a seat in the main chambers can sit in overflow rooms 161 and 162 downstairs where monitors will be screening the forum, she said.
The Truth Act Forum will also be broadcast on monitors in the center’s lobby area, as well as streamed online at https://slo-span.org.
