A local rapid-response hotline for ICE activity will soon be up and running, a project of West Marin Community Services that was launched during the first Trump administration but has been dormant in the years since.
The nonprofit is seeking volunteer dispatchers and encouraging residents to register for an alert service, which will send out notifications if ICE presence is confirmed in the community.
Rapid-response hotlines are going live all across the Bay Area in response to the new administration’s threat to increase the deportation of immigrants. Existing hotlines based over the hill are hoping to coordinate with West Marin Community Services to expand their effectiveness and exchange data.
The registration process for the West Marin hotline is anonymous, and the nonprofit is working to ensure that the data is kept safe. To avoid causing panic, the group asks residents to refrain from publicizing sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities unless they confirm them.
Instead of self-reporting, residents are encouraged to dial the hotline’s new number—yet to be released—so that trained volunteers can confirm the sighting or quell any rumors, based on a review of the evidence. False reports have spurred panic around the Bay Area, including one in Novato last week.
Hotline volunteers will also advise residents on how to interact with ICE agents. The basic points are contained in now-ubiquitous “red cards” produced by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
“We’ve been handing out these red cards that talk about your rights and that you don’t necessarily have to answer questions from ICE,” said Alma Sanchez, a program manager with West Marin Community Services.
The bilingual cards are designed to inform both citizens and immigrants of their rights and protections under the United States Constitution, invoking the Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination and the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unwarranted searches and seizures.
At the community health centers in Point Reyes Station and Bolinas, clinic managers are trained to read warrants and determine their validity. Pedro Toledo, the C.E.O. of Petaluma Health Center, which runs the clinics, said he is ready to address any warrants that may be served.
“You have to look at the names, the locations, does it have the right addresses, was it done by the right agency, is it for the right purpose, is it for data or information, or is it for other purposes,” Mr. Toledo said. “Managers should be able to deal with that sort of situation, and they’re provided with training.”
California is home to nearly 11 million immigrants, making up almost 30 percent of the population—more than any other state. Attorney General Rob Bonta said the California Department of Justice has been preparing for the federal transition and increases in ICE activity.
“Top of our list of concerns is the new administration’s plans for our immigrant communities,” he said. “We expect our law enforcement agencies, who enforce the law every day, to follow the law. And that includes S.B. 54.”
Passed into law in 2017, S.B. 54, known as the California Values Act, prevents state and local law enforcement agencies from using their allocated resources to assist federal immigration authorities except under certain circumstances. This legislation is considered a “sanctuary law,” though it permits cooperation between federal and local law enforcement agencies when the individual has a history of violent crimes or felonies.
“We know that there are some law enforcement agencies that have different ideological approaches, but it doesn’t mean you don’t follow the law,” Mr. Bonta said.
According to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, ICE personnel were in the Novato area in late January, and in the San Rafael area in mid-February. The notices ICE gave the office about its activity did not include any details, and ICE did not report whether anyone was detained.
ICE is not required to notify local law enforcement of its operations but it may do so out of courtesy. “Since this is a new process under this presidential administration, we are in a grey area of learning how they will communicate any incidents they may have in our jurisdiction,” said Sgt. Adam Schermerhorn, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office.
In 2020, the sheriff’s office ceased to allow ICE into the secure area of the Marin County Jail to make arrests, a response to public backlash and the passage of the California Values Act. In 2017, the sheriff’s office received 137 immigration detainer requests that led to 68 arrests by ICE agents. But over time, the office has reduced its involvement with ICE, and the number of notifications completed in 2024 dropped to 14 out of ICE’s 104 total requests.
S.B. 54 made responding to ICE requests voluntary, and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office opts to do so. “When they leave [the jail], we have to notify ICE of their release. We don’t go out of our way to ensure that ICE is available to pick them up,” Sgt. Schermerhorn said. “We don’t give them a date. We don’t give them a time.”
When the office notifies ICE of a jail release, it calls ICE’s general 800 number, and if someone answers the phone, which is not always the case, Sgt. Schermerhorn said, they provide the person’s name.
Activists say the sheriff’s office’s pattern of collaborating with immigration authorities, combined with the allowances left in S.B. 54, creates a heightened sense of anxiety in the immigrant community.
“Any level of cooperation is sort of like collective punishment of an entire community,” said Lisa Bennett, the interim executive director at the Multicultural Center of Marin and the co-chair of ICE Out of Marin. “Everyone knows that if the sheriff is nearby, they could send you to ICE. That’s the assumption made, because they cooperate.”
Ms. Bennett directs a countywide ICE hotline, called the Marin Rapid Response Network, and helps train bilingual dispatchers. Like the West Marin hotline volunteers, they answer calls, collect data to verify the presence of ICE agents and provide support for community members approached by immigration authorities.
Through these efforts, dispatchers are able to recognize false reports made either from a sense of fear or malice, and they can distinguish a real emergency from a prank call, Ms. Bennett said. The Marin Rapid Response Network is hoping to collaborate with W.M.C.S. to connect the two hotlines and exchange data.
“The best way to fight back, that I’m aware of, is to build community power. Build community information,” Ms. Bennett said.
To report immigration authority sightings before the local hotline goes live, call the Marin Rapid Response Network at (415) 991.4545. To learn more about the West Marin hotline or to volunteer, contact Alma Sanchez at [email protected] or (415) 663.8361. If you are interested in working with the countywide hotline, email Lisa Bennett at [email protected].