The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will work with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) in allowing immigration detainees to be housed in Orange County jails. An agreement was approved by Orange County supervisors to have detainees stay at the James A. Musick Facility in Irvine and the Theo Lacey Facility in Orange. The availability of beds stem from an early release of inmates based on a new law that allows early release for qualified inmates. ICE would use the facilities to house detainees that have completed their sentences and are awaiting immigration status results. The contract allows for the jails to take in more then 800 ICE detainees. While the money generated by this deal would be worth more than $30 million and save Orange County Sheriff jobs, the City of Orange is against the contract because they fear a large increase in the number of inmates at the Theo Lacy facility will exceed the 2800 cap required by the City. The Sheriff of Orange County, Sheriff Hutchens denies that will be a problem.

At a council meeting on March 9, 2010, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens offered a proposal to house 838 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees at two of the Orange County jails – Theo Lacy and James A. Musick Facility. Most of the ICE detainees are former federal, state or local inmates who were unable to provide proof of citizenship at the time of their arrest and were turned over to ICE after serving their sentence.

Sheriff Hutchens’ proposal was not well-received by both the Mayor and Councilmen. Both were “uncomfortable” with the Sheriff Department’s proposal especially since there was an issue of it violating the city’s 15-year-old agreement with the county, which specifies jail perimeters and limits on inmate population. According to the Orange County Register, Hutchens said “she did not believe the proposal would violate the existing agreement with the city because nothing new would be added to the jail.” She further stated, “We have no intention of increasing the population above what was discussed (in the agreement).”