The number is 8,901. That's how many ICE detainers California jails and prisons have refused to honor, according to a new accounting first reported by BizPac Review. Each of those detainers was a federal request: hold this illegal alien a few extra hours so ICE can come pick him up. Each refusal was a jailhouse door swinging open instead.

For readers who don't live in this world, a quick explainer. A detainer is a written request from ICE to a local jail asking them to hold a person up to 48 hours past their release date so federal officers can take custody. Detainers get lodged when ICE has reason to believe the person is deportable, and the people in question here are criminals, per the reporting. The hold costs the county nothing. ICE does the transport. All the jail has to do is not open the gate early.

California decided years ago it would rather open the gate. The state's sanctuary laws bar local agencies from honoring most ICE detainers and even from telling federal agents when a criminal alien is about to walk. Sacramento's argument has always been that cooperating with federal immigration enforcement makes communities less safe, because illegal aliens won't report crimes to police. I heard that line my whole career and it never got less stupid. The illegal alien who won't call the cops was never going to call the cops. Meanwhile the criminal you just released walks out the door and stays in the country.

The scoreboard tells the story. California isn't alone in this game. New York has run the same playbook, and the results look the same: detainers rejected, criminals released, federal agents left holding paperwork. The count isn't abstract. Every ignored detainer is a name and a release date that came and went while ICE agents sat in a parking lot across the street because the jail wouldn't confirm the booking.

Anyone who worked the line knows how easy the fix would be. Honor the detainer. Hold the guy 48 hours. ICE shows up, takes custody, and the removal process starts. Instead California forces federal agents to go find these people the hard way, in neighborhoods, at workplaces, on street corners, which is exactly the kind of operation the same sanctuary politicians then scream about. You can't block the safe arrest at the jail and then complain about the street arrest. Well, you can, if you're a California politician, and you do, every time.

The 8,901 figure will get dismissed by the usual advocates as just paperwork, or as families being torn apart. The reporting says criminals. These are not traffic tickets getting walked out the door. When the feds ask you to hold someone and you say no 8,901 times, you know what you're releasing.

California likes to call itself a model for the country. On this they're right, the way a car wreck is a model of what not to do. Eight thousand nine hundred and one detainers ignored. Criminals set free. That's the count, and Sacramento owns every digit of it.