Rep. Calvert Reintroduces Bill to Improve the Safety of our Communities

Congressman Ken Calvert (CA-41) reintroduced legislation, H.R. 1821, to keep our communities safe by ensuring dangerous criminals are not released onto our streets. The Help Ensure Legal Detainers (HELD) Act would incentivize state and local law enforcement agencies to comply with federal law enforcement requests to transfer the custody of criminal illegal immigrants for their removal.
“When states and local law enforcement agencies refuse to turn over illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes to federal law enforcement for removal from our country they are putting our communities at risk,” said Rep. Calvert. “The HELD Act is rooted in the widespread belief that dangerous and violent criminal illegal immigrants should be given a one-way ticket out of our country. America is a nation of immigrants, but we are a beacon of hope throughout the world because we respect and enforce the rule of law."
In 2017, when SB 54 was signed into law making California a sanctuary state, there have been repeated instances of ignored detainers resulting in dangerous and deadly consequences.
The HELD Act would deny all federal funding to any state or locality that has a law, policy or procedure in place that prevents local law enforcement from maintaining the custody of an illegal immigrant pursuant to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer. Specifically, the bill would:

• Require local municipalities to promptly respond to an ICE detainer notice issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) that requests information about an illegal immigrant in custody in order for the Secretary to arrange for custody of the illegal immigrant.
• Require local municipalities to maintain custody of an illegal immigrant for up to 48 hours pursuant to an immigration Detainer so that the illegal immigrant can be transferred to the custody of DHS.
• The HELD Act includes an exception in the bill in cases when counties may have a policy in place that prevents local law enforcement from working with ICE while cities within that county may have no such policy.  In these cases, the flow of federal funding that would normally go through the county would go directly to the city.