Watch: Bill Brown Chides ICE for "Excesses" - But Says Sheriff Must Stay "Neutral" Amid Anti-Immigrant Crusade

In an exclusive interview, Santa Barbara County's top lawman expresses "empathy" for communities under federal siege, but insists his deputies cannot serve as watchdogs to protect protesters.

Sheriff Bill Brown bristles at criticism that he has been timid in pushing back against the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign, stating that his “hands are tied” in confronting the conduct of federal immigration agents.

Now in his 20^th year as Santa Barbara County’s top lawman, Brown is a prominent figure in professional policing circles, serving until last month as president of the Washington-based Major County Sheriffs of America, after previously heading both the California Sheriffs Association and the California Police Chiefs Association.

Because of his high-profile platform, a group of more than two dozen other local elected officials publicly has called on him to speak out against the Administration, amid ongoing sweeps and random arrests by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents throughout Santa Barbara, and following a federal raid on a Carpinteria cannabis facility last summer that resulted in an explosive confrontation with anti-ICE protesters.

“That just really is so galling to me,” Brown said in a Newsmakers TV interview on Thursday, referencing the open letter from Santa Barbara County political figures, ranging from Rep. Salud Carbajal to elected school board members in the valley.

“People were calling for, ‘well, you should have had Sheriff’s deputies there and you should have been protecting people and rescuing people from them, and so forth,” he added. “And that is totally, absolutely contrary to any kind of way law enforcement operations are conducted. You don’t have two armed agencies come and all of a sudden now be in conflict with actions that one of them is doing.”

“I have talked about this issue publicly,” Brown said, “but until last week I was the president of this national organization - I represented the top 100, the largest 100 county sheriffs in the United States. And it was not a time for me to be expressing my personal opinions about what was going on.”

Amid ongoing criticism of his low-key approach to the deportation crisis, from fellow politicians and immigrant rights advocates alike, Brown this week sent local media outlets an opinion column about the matter; he elided mention of the cruelty and brutality of ICE’s campaign, which has roiled Democratic-led cities across the country, instead framing the conflict as a “two viewpoint,” polarized policy dispute that could be solved by good-faith bipartisan agreement over comprehensive legislation to reform the U.S. immigration system.

Which, okay.

“If the Democrats and the Republicans just throw grenades at each other on this, if they don’t sit down behind closed doors and in the spirit of goodwill get together and try to work this out and craft some legislation. I don’t think the problem’s going to be solved,” Brown said.

“We’re not on a track to do it anytime soon,” he acknowledged. “But it’s got to happen at some point. There’s got to be a solution to this.”

State of play. To be certain, Brown faces a daunting task in seeking to navigate, politically, legally and culturally, the cross-current demands of a right-wing extremist national government and liberal state laws that restrict his authority in dealing with immigration matters, not to mention local constituencies shaped by progressive politicians, Latino leaders and lefty journalists.

Since his return to office, Trump has launched the most aggressive interior immigration enforcement campaign in modern American history.

With expanded authority, ICE has become the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency in history with $85 billion now at its disposal.

The agency, buttressed by a hiring spree plus U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, has surged military-style operations into blue cities, including Santa Barbara; the actions of masked and heavily-armed agents, clad in tactical gear and not wearing identification, have triggered a nationwide series of demonstrations, including recent deadly protests in Minneapolis.

Despite its repeated claims of pursuing only the “worst of the worst,” ICE has gone well beyond arresting only immigrants with serious criminal records, sweeping up longtime residents, asylum seekers, and non-violent offenders into its rapidly-expanding detention system.

Investigative reports, based on previously undisclosed Department of Homeland Security documents, show that ICE has snatched up about 400,000 people nationwide – of whom only 14 percent have charges or convictions for violent offenses.

In the South Coast region, about 1,500 people, the vast majority without criminal records, have been swept up, including about 350 people in Santa Barbara County, according to information compiled from public sources by the Deportation Data Project.

Amid this context, Brown in the interview provided his most extensive public comments to date about the roiling deportation conflict, an in-depth and detailed master class of caution, equivocation and temporizing worthy of a diplomat representing Switzerland.

“My job is to operate a law enforcement agency and to make sure that the men and women at the sheriff’s office are operating neutrally when they’re in the field. We are third party neutral problem solvers. We do investigations. We don’t prejudge, we don’t have biases against people that drive what we do,” Brown said.

“I have to navigate a very difficult terrain here on this because, as I say, we have to continue to work with our other law enforcement agencies, including our federal agencies…The local (federal) people that we’ve dealt with have been by and large, very professional, and we’ve had a good relationship to the extent that we can work with them. Our hands are tied as far as how much we can work with them.”

Stephen Miller’s master plan. Brown acknowledged that the Administration’s deportation project has gone far beyond Trump’s campaign promise to pursue “the worst of the worst” of those immigrants with criminal records.

“It’s obvious that there’s an attempt to remove as many people who are undocumented as possible by the Administration,” Brown told Newsmakers.

“And some of the tactics and some of the approaches are certainly causing a lot of concern, beyond concern — it’s outrage at some point and certainly a lot of fear and a lot of angst, and there’s certainly a lot of things that are happening that concern me as well, he added, before quickly citing a public opinion poll finding that “52 percent of Americans that were surveyed said they believe that all people who are undocumented should be deported.”

“Everybody doesn’t think the same way we think here in California, and we have a majority of Americans that still believe that everybody should be deported,” he said.

“I think there have been some excesses and some things done that were arguably against the law and where excessive force was used and where tactics could have been done much better,” Brown said, in discussing nationwide anti-ICE demonstrations.

“The problems, unfortunately, have gotten to the point where it’s gotten so polarized and so bitter that there are actions beyond simple protesting that are taking place, that run into the realm of interference with operations and unfortunately have been a catalyst to see situations develop that have become very tragic.”

Indeed.

In our interview, Sheriff Brown also offered his opinion about federal agents wearing masks; a proposal that his deputies record the actions of ICE at local demonstrations; his struggle to keep up with “shock and awe” news about Trump; his one and only meeting with White House immigration kingpin Stephen Miller; and his belief that much of the current crisis can be pinned on Joe Biden. Plus: Sheriff Bill gets deep into the weeds on the county budget mess.

Check out our complete interview with Sheriff Bill Brown on Episode 545 of Newsmakers TV, via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. Our podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, or on Soundcloud here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 5 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on weekends.