contract with the Office of Refugee and Resettlement Grant Program to avoid potential problems with holding minors who have not been convicted of any crimes. - Daily Democrat archives " />contract with the Office of Refugee and Resettlement Grant Program to avoid potential problems with holding minors who have not been convicted of any crimes. - Daily Democrat archives " />
Yolo County wants to terminate its controversial Office of Refugee and Resettlement Grant Program, which earned national attention last year for holding a then 14-year-old Honduran boy known as “G.E.” who had not committed a crime, but spent over a year in the detention facility.
Yolo supervisors are scheduled to debate the issue on Tuesday. The meeting gets underway at 9 a.m.
As proposed, the county would end its cooperation with the ORR while retaining staffing and operations support for up to 15 Yolo County Superior Court detained minors.
Yolo is one of only two programs in the nation to have such an agreement with the feds and ending it would cost the county $534,000.
According to county staff, the county entered into an agreement with the Office of Administration for Children and Families to provide bed space for, what is now, up to 24 youth who meet Office of Refugee and Resettlement secure placement criteria.
Yolo County has partnered with ORR for nearly a decade, and when this program was up for renewal, the Probation Department applied for, and was re-awarded, a new contract in February 2017. The new grant awarded Yolo County $2,944,589 for the first year of three; the remaining two years include funding in the amount of almost $3 million per year, for a total of approximately $9 million for the duration of the agreement.
The ORR program has now entered into the second of three years under the new agreement but after much review and evaluation related to administering this program, Chief Probation Officer Brent Cardall “has found that it would be in the best interest of the County to terminate this federal contract and end the program.”
Termination is recommended as soon as administratively feasible. If this recommendation is approved, arrangements with the federal government will be made to move the youth from the Juvenile Detention Facility, and the required staff reduction protocol will be followed, meaning layoffs of civil and sworn positions at the Probation Department.
The reasons for the termination are several, according to a county report, including:
•Often, ORR youth placed in Yolo County have been subject to significant trauma, community violence and are marginalization before they come here. They exhibit a high rate of challenging behaviors, increased mental illness, and at times, physical aggression that has resulted in staff injuries from assaults by ORR youth. In order to address these serious behaviors increased staffing would be needed. Over the 2016 and 2017 years, data has shown that ORR youth are three times more likely to assault staff than non-ORR youth.
•Institutions in general experience issues with overtime and excessive sick time usage. Currently, there is a significant amount of leave time used which contributes to staffing shortages and overtime.
•Undocumented Children placed in the Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility through the ORR program, who commit crimes while at the JDF can be criminally charged. This creates the potential for the youth to fall under the jurisdiction of local probation supervision, and creates placement issues and unfunded costs for the county.
•Recent events related to ORR issues (since early 2017) have required substantial County Counsel involvement; this results in an opportunity cost in addressing other county business given the limited resources of that office.
•Having the ORR contract subjects the county to meet federal Prison Rape Elimination Act staffing requirements above the Board of State and Community Corrections standards, and comes with significant documentation requirements for the federal government.
•Evolving legislation may affect Yolo County if this contract continues. New laws such as Senate Bill 54, the Sanctuary State law, or Senate Bill 29 (2017) prohibiting localities in California from entering into, or expanding immigration housing contracts with the federal government, are recent examples of this. Although, currently, neither of these directly apply to this specific contract, the spirit of new legislation indicates a state-wide movement to separate local government from federal immigration issues.
The issue arose in early 2017 when Northern California newspapers reported on the detention of “G.E.” an Honduran refugee.
County Counsel Phil Pogledich warned supervisors last October that many juveniles are picked up on the East Coast and then brought to Yolo on minimal evidence.
“(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) tells ORR: ‘Hey, this kids rumored to be with a gang,’” Pogledich explained to supervisors at the time. “The child is then placed in a secure facility in Yolo County. We, along with ORR, ask for evidence of the alleged gang involvement … and receive in response, on many occasions, absolutely nothing at all.”
“That entire scenario should not be happening in the first place,” Pogledich told supervisors. “The children should not be taken and placed in a secure facility and only later have it be determined that there is not sufficient evidence of gang involvement to justify placing them in a secure facility.”
In addition, Pogledich said once juveniles are initially placed in care facilities, they cannot contest their placement until after 30 days. Even then, they have little in the way of resources or representation to find proper care.
Cardall told supervisors that Yolo’s secure programs shouldn’t even apply to those with alleged gang involvement — only those who pose a threat to themselves or others require the highest level of care, along with those who have been charged with a more serious criminal offense.
“I think we have to demand that at least the minimal due process be met,” said District 4 Supervisor Jim Provenza in October. “If they can’t provide that, then I don’t want to be a facility that accepts them.”
