San Diego Jails are the latest to say they won't honor immigration holds

Immigration rights advocates are calling San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore's latest announcement a win.  As of late last week, he's joined a growing number of other counties throughout the state who are no longer detaining inmates simply because of their immigration status.

Every time a person is arrested their information is run through a national database. If Immigration Customs and Enforcement determines the defendant may not be in the country legally they'll issue a hold and ask the jail to hold this person a few extra days so they can scoop them up.

But the question as to whether it's legal to hold someone past their release date if they haven't committed a crime has come into question, and a federal court recently ruled a jail in the Northwestern part of a the US violated an immigrant's Fourth Amendment rights for doing just that.

Representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says San Diego is now the largest county in the nation that has said bye-bye to ICE holds.

And the San Joaquin Jails were quick to follow

Less than seven days after Gore made his announcement, San Joaquin County officials said they planned to follow suit.  Although 48-hour ICE detainer requests had been honored in the past, that practice has officially come to an end.

The only exception to that rule, they said, is if the inmate poses a significant risk to public safety.

As of today, Riverside, Monterey, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alameda Counties have said they'll no longer hold detainees for simply being in the country without the proper documents.

Nationally, cities in Oregon, Colorado, Maryland and Pennsylvania have also kissed that policy good bye.