LIVE UPDATES
Quick reads — ICE showed interest in dozens of Butte County jail bookings in 2025, sheriff says
Immigration authorities showed more interest in local inmates compared to 2024
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told county supervisors today that federal immigration authorities showed significantly more interest in people booked into the local jail in 2025.
The annual report under California’s Truth Act comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) faces scrutiny nationwide.
ICE expressed interest in 52 people booked at the county jail in 2025, according to Honea’s report. Thirty-eight of those cases met the criteria for the Sheriff’s Office to share information with federal authorities.
State law limits when his office can cooperate with immigration agents, the sheriff said. Those cases mainly involve serious or violent crimes.
“I don’t inquire as to the intent of federal authorities,” Honea said. “Again, that gets back to — they do their job, I don’t do anything — either to assist beyond what I’m allowed to under state law or interfere in any way.”
Honea said ICE ultimately arrested six people after they were released from jail.
That’s up from 2024, when ICE made no arrests after showing interest in 13 people.
Shasta County DA says low staffing is straining prosecutions
The Shasta County District Attorney’s Office says it’s running so short on prosecutors that some cases will have to wait.
District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett says the situation has reached a near crisis point.
In a recent video posted to Facebook, Bridgett said the office is supposed to have 28 prosecutors. Right now, it has 20, and by the end of the month, four more prosecutors are expected to leave.
Due to non-competitive pay, extremely large case loads, our ability to not recruit over the last many years has resulted in us now having only 16 line level prosecutors to handle all the cases in our office,” Bridgett said in the video.
Because of the shortage, she said prosecutors will focus first on the most serious crimes, including homicides, sex crimes and child abuse cases.
Other cases could face delays or temporary backlogs.
It’s not clear how long the staffing shortage could continue affecting the office.