When “Common Sense” Needs Evidence: The Farm Bureau, ICE, and Public Safety

There are few phrases more appealing in a political debate than “common sense.”

It suggests that the answer is obvious. Reasonable people should see it. Only extremists would disagree.

But complex public policy rarely works that way.

That is especially true when immigration, law enforcement, public safety and community trust intersect.

In Sunday’s Press Democrat Close to Home section, Sonoma County Farm Bureau Executive Director Dayna Ghirardelli defended the organization’s support for Sheriff Eddie Engram’s Immigration Collaboration Policy. Her commentary followed a recent protest by immigrant-rights advocates outside the Farm Bureau’s Santa Rosa office.

Ghirardelli described the Farm Bureau’s position as reasonable and balanced. The organization supports immigrant workers, she wrote, while also supporting limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement when individuals have been convicted of serious or violent crimes.

That position should not automatically be dismissed as anti-immigrant.

But it shouldn't escape scrutiny simply because it is called “common sense.”

The more important question is this:

What evidence shows that the sheriff’s cooperation with ICE is addressing a significant public-safety issue in Sonoma County?

And, just as important, why has an organization whose economic interests are so closely tied to immigrant workers chosen to lend its institutional voice to this particular immigration enforcement policy?

Public Safety Is a Legitimate Concern

I approach this issue from two perspectives that are sometimes treated as mutually exclusive.

I came to this country from Mexico as a child. I also spent more than three decades in law enforcement and retired as a Santa Rosa police lieutenant.

I deeply believe in immigrant communities.

I also strongly believe in accountability.

Anyone who commits murder, rape, a serious assault, or another violent crime should be held accountable. Immigration status should never shield anyone from accountability.

The Farm Bureau is correct about that.

But the question before Sonoma County is not whether serious criminals should be held accountable. They already can be arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated under California law.

The question is whether local law enforcement should also assist federal immigration authorities by notifying ICE when certain individuals are released from county custody.

That is a different question.

And it deserves more than a slogan.

The Sheriff’s Office makes clear that it neither enforces federal immigration law, conducts immigration sweeps, nor routinely asks people about their immigration status.

Sheriff Engram has also adopted a policy that is considerably narrower than California law allows. County records indicate that he has limited ICE notifications to incarcerated people with “repeat, serious, and/or violent felony convictions.”

That distinction deserves recognition.

So does another one.

This cooperation is, at least in part, a policy choice.

The sheriff could cooperate more under state law. He has decided not to. Critics believe he should cooperate even less.

That is the legitimate policy debate.

What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

In 2025, ICE asked the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office to provide notice before the release of 601 people in county custody.

The Sheriff responded to 69 of those requests, about 11.5%. In 2024, ICE made 484 requests, and the Sheriff’s Office responded to 64 of them.

Those numbers tell us something about the sheriff’s interactions with ICE.

They do not tell us that undocumented immigrants are responsible for 69 violent crimes.

They do not tell us that 69 dangerous undocumented immigrants would otherwise have been released into Sonoma County.

And they certainly do not establish that undocumented immigrants are driving violent crime in the local area.

That data simply does not exist in a reliable form.

Local crime statistics generally do not categorize offenders by immigration status. That makes it impossible to accurately calculate the percentage of Sonoma County’s violent crime committed by undocumented immigrants.

What we do know is that Sonoma County is not experiencing a surge in overall violent crime.

An analysis of newly released California Department of Justice data found that local law enforcement agencies reported 1,197 violent crimes in Sonoma County in 2025, the lowest total in at least a decade. The countywide violent-crime rate was about 247 crimes per 100,000 residents, roughly 43% lower than California’s rate of 431.1.

None of this means that violent crime is insignificant.

Statistics offer little comfort to someone who has been assaulted, robbed, raped, or lost a loved one to homicide.

But public policy should still reflect the scope of the problem it aims to address.

If the rationale for local cooperation with ICE is public safety, we should be able to ask how large that public-safety problem is.

What Research Says About Immigration and Crime

The broader body of research also gives us reason to be cautious about linking undocumented immigration to violent crime.

A peer-reviewed study examining undocumented immigration and violence across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., from 1990 through 2014 found no evidence that increases in undocumented immigration led to higher rates of violent crime. The relationship generally moved in the opposite direction.

Another study used unusually detailed Texas arrest records, enabling researchers to distinguish among undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and U.S.-born citizens.

Researchers found that U.S.-born citizens were more than twice as likely as undocumented immigrants to be arrested for violent crimes. Undocumented immigrants also had lower arrest rates for property and drug offenses.

Texas is not Sonoma County, and research should never be used to claim that undocumented immigrants do not commit violent crimes.

Some do.

The key point is that the evidence does not support treating undocumented immigration as a predictor of violent criminality.

That is why local evidence matters.

Why the Farm Bureau Became a Target

The July protest outside the Farm Bureau office did not occur simply because activists objected to someone holding a different political opinion.

The Sanctuary Coalition deliberately targeted the Farm Bureau because it represents an industry that relies heavily on immigrant workers.

Organizers called their demonstration a “die-in” and demanded that the organization withdraw its support for the sheriff’s cooperation with ICE. They linked the local policy to growing concerns about deaths and violence associated with federal immigration enforcement and detention.

People can reasonably disagree on the protest tactics.

Blocking an entrance or using emotionally charged imagery does not automatically make an argument more persuasive.

But the protesters’ underlying question deserves an answer:

What responsibility does an organization representing employers of thousands of immigrant workers have when it endorses cooperation with an immigration enforcement system that those workers may fear?

The Farm Bureau itself acknowledges that immigrant families are indispensable to agriculture.

They cultivate vineyards. They harvest crops. They tend livestock. They operate equipment. They support an industry woven into Sonoma County’s economic and cultural identity.

That relationship gives the Farm Bureau every reason to participate in immigration policy discussions.

But it also imposes a special responsibility on the organization to consider the consequences of its positions.

Public Safety Also Depends on Trust

This is where the debate becomes larger than the 69 notifications sent to ICE last year.

Law enforcement depends on information.

Police officers cannot prevent every crime on their own. They need victims to call. Witnesses to speak. Parents to report concerns. Neighbors to provide information. Domestic violence survivors to seek help.

Trust is not a sentimental add-on to public safety.

It is part of the public safety infrastructure.

Earlier this year, Los Cien urged Sonoma County to end voluntary cooperation with ICE, arguing that uncertainty over information-sharing breeds fear and erodes community trust in law enforcement.

Those concerns took shape when Sonoma County’s independent law enforcement watchdog investigated a complaint about information shared before an ICE arrest. The incident intensified calls from immigrant advocates for greater transparency and clearer limits on cooperation.

That should concern anyone who cares about effective policing, regardless of their immigration-related political views.

If an undocumented mother witnesses a violent assault but fears that contacting law enforcement could expose someone in her household to immigration authorities, public safety is at risk.

If a farmworker who is experiencing wage theft, trafficking, or domestic violence is afraid to report it, public safety suffers.

If parents tell their teenagers not to speak with police officers because they cannot distinguish local policing from federal immigration enforcement, public safety suffers.

Those consequences also belong in the equation.

Why This Particular Issue — and Why Now?

This brings me back to the Farm Bureau.

The organization unquestionably has a legitimate interest in immigration policy.

But immigration touches agriculture in many ways.

Workforce shortages.

Family stability.

Housing.

Labor protections.

Legal status.

Fear of workplace enforcement.

The economic consequences of deportation.

The North Bay Leadership Council, another influential regional business organization, has focused heavily on the economic consequences. It has warned that immigrants are essential to North Bay’s agriculture, construction, hospitality, health care, and other industries and that enforcement-driven fear can destabilize the workforce.

More than one-quarter of California’s agricultural workforce is estimated to be undocumented, and nearly two-thirds are immigrants. Research cited by the North Bay Leadership Council estimates that removing undocumented workers could substantially reduce California’s agricultural output.

Timing adds another dimension to that question.

Sonoma County’s 2026 winegrape harvest began on July 24, several weeks earlier than last year’s and potentially one of the earliest starts in the region’s history. By late August, when the Farm Bureau was publicly defending its position, growers were in the middle of a season when the availability and confidence of vineyard workers were most critical.

The winegrape industry’s workforce data underscores that relationship. A 2021 survey reported 6,139 full-time vineyard workers and 670 seasonal workers in Sonoma County. More than half of surveyed vineyard employees had worked for the same farming family or farm manager for over 10 years. These are not merely anonymous labor inputs. Many are long-standing members of the same communities the Farm Bureau and the Sheriff’s Office serve.

That does not explain why the Farm Bureau took its position, and the timing should not be treated as evidence of an ulterior motive. Its leaders may sincerely believe the sheriff has struck the proper balance between supporting immigrant families and cooperating with ICE in cases involving serious offenders.

But timing makes the institutional choice more consequential. During harvest, fear of immigration enforcement can affect whether workers report to work, travel freely, seek assistance, or interact with public institutions. A narrowly written jail-notification policy may look very different on paper than the broader phrase “cooperation with ICE” sounds to a worker worried about family members, coworkers, or neighbors.

That creates an additional responsibility for an agricultural organization entering this debate. If the Farm Bureau believes its position protects public safety without undermining its workforce, it should clearly explain that distinction — and demonstrate how it weighed the potential effect on worker trust during one of agriculture’s most important periods of the year.

Against that economic and human backdrop, the Farm Bureau’s decision to formally support a county-level ICE collaboration policy — made during an active winegrape harvest — is noteworthy.

I have been unable to find a comparable public endorsement of the sheriff’s policy from our local chambers of commerce.

That does not mean the Farm Bureau should remain silent.

It means we should be able to ask why it chose to address this particular issue — and why it chose to do so now.

What agricultural problem does the sheriff’s ICE policy aim to address?

What Sonoma County data demonstrate that undocumented immigrants convicted of violent crimes pose a significant threat, warranting Farm Bureau advocacy?

How has the organization weighed that perceived benefit against the fear and uncertainty faced by immigrant workers and their families, especially during harvest?

Those are fair questions.

They are not attacks on agriculture.

They are what accountability looks like when an influential institution chooses to engage in a contentious public-policy debate.

Why This Matters Today

We live in a time when immigration discussions can reduce human beings to categories almost instantly.

“Illegal.”

“Criminal.”

“Sanctuary.”

“Deport.”

“Open borders.”

“Common sense.”

Each word can become a substitute for thinking.

Sonoma County can do better.

We can insist that violent offenders be held accountable while rejecting the assumption that undocumented immigrants are inherently dangerous.

We can recognize the sheriff’s responsibility to protect the community while questioning whether cooperation with ICE strengthens or undermines community trust.

We can respect the Farm Bureau’s right to participate in public policy while expecting it to demonstrate how this issue advances the interests of agriculture and of Sonoma County.

And we can listen to immigrant workers not merely because agriculture needs their labor, but because they are members of this community.

The Farm Bureau concluded that supporting immigrant families and ensuring public safety are complementary principles.

I agree.

But that principle works in both directions.

Public safety is not simply about what happens to a person convicted of a serious crime when the jail door opens.

It is also about whether a frightened mother calls 911.

Whether a farmworker reports being victimized.

Whether a witness trusts a deputy enough to tell the truth.

Whether young people view law enforcement officers as people they can approach when they are in danger.

And whether the policies we defend are supported by evidence rather than by assumptions.

The Farm Bureau has every right to step outside its traditional lane.

But when any influential organization enters a debate this consequential, “common sense” cannot be the end of the conversation.

It should be the beginning.

And the evidence should come with it.