Voters in Charleston County, S.C., which includes the state’s largest city, have ousted a sheriff who made the county a sanctuary for criminal aliens. The sanctuary policy became an issue in now-lame-duck Sheriff Kristin Graziano’s re-election bid after the Center flagged it in a recent update to our sanctuary map and list.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), whose district includes Charleston, and who sits on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, launched an inquiry into the sanctuary policy after learning from ICE that 51 individuals had been released from the Charleston County jail despite ICE detainers.
One of the individuals freed under the sanctuary policy was Randolph Clarke, a visa overstayer who was arrested in September 2024 on two counts of soliciting a young teenager for sex. According to emails published by the sheriff in response to Mace’s inquiry, ICE filed a detainer on Clarke the day after his arrest. A jail officer responded that “per the sheriff” they would not hold Clarke after he posted bond without a removal order signed by an immigration judge, and that “he has a GPS on so he will be easy to find if y’all need him”. The ICE officer replied that he could not provide a final removal order because Clarke had not been to immigration court yet, but “if you turn him over to us, we can get that for you!” Instead, Clarke was released after seven days. Reportedly, ICE was able to pick him up within a couple of days, but the better solution would have been for the jail to simply allow ICE to take custody of him at the jail, a secure location.
This is ICE’s predicament — in cases like this, sanctuary jurisdictions make deliberately unreasonable demands that ICE produce documents that are impossible to provide, which results in the release of criminal aliens who could be removed instead of being set free to offend again. The sheriff’s specific demand for final orders of removal signed by a judge is especially unreasonable, because only about 10 percent of illegal aliens in the country have actually already been arrested and completed immigration proceedings, and would have that document in their file (which would take ICE days to obtain).
The new sheriff-elect of Charleston County, retired police chief Carl Ritchie, has pledged to do “almost everything” differently from Graziano, including rescinding the sanctuary policy and restoring the 287(g) partnership with ICE.