Acting ICE director reacts to San Francisco's new sheriff saying he won't cooperate with agency
Acting ICE Director Matthew Albence says not sharing information with the agency poses a clear public safety threat.
While some state and local law enforcement agencies push back against Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), Acting ICE Director Matt Albence said on Friday that the greatest "misconception" is that so-called sanctuary states are forced to share information with federal authorities.
"All we’re asking them for is information. Share that information so that we can go out and enforce the federal laws that we are sworn to uphold,” Albence said on “Fox & Friends.”
Albence said that in Orange County, the recidivism rate is more than 20% for the criminal illegal immigrants that he’s had to release as a result of California’s S.B. 54, also known as the "California Value's Act."
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“It’s a clear public safety threat to turn people out back to the street to re-offend and most of the time, they go back to these very same communities and commit these crimes,” Albence said.
Meantime, an association of New York sheriffs recently expressed "deep concern" about the state’s new “Green Light Law," which it called "unwise" -- the latest law enforcement group to come out against the controversial law ahead of a meeting between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Trump at the White House.
In a letter to Cuomo and other state politicians, the New York State Sheriffs’ Association expressed its “opposition and deep concern” about the recently passed law that grants driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and blocks state Department of Motor Vehicles agencies from sharing information with federal immigration authorities.
It comes as Cuomo was set to meet Trump at the White House, where the law was expected to be discussed. The administration responded to the law last week by suspending Global Entry and similar travel programs for New York residents out of security concerns.
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Albence said that he cannot understand the “rationale” behind a state enacting a law that prevents ICE from enforcing federal law.
"They’re the only state in this entire country that has such a restrictive law that prevents us from doing our jobs. Sometimes an investigation in human trafficking and child exploitation investigation, the only information we have with which to start a lead is to run a license plate.
“We can’t even run those license plates now,” Albence added.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.