Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Despite U.S.-hold request, thousands of aliens released
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Immigration officials have said local authorities across the U.S. released thousands of illegal aliens from jails this year despite efforts to take them into federal custody, including more than 3,000 with previous felony charges or convictions.
The numbers are the first time federal immigration authorities have pub- licly detailed how many times the nation’s local law enforcement agencies have refused to comply with their requests. They highlight the friction between the federal government and police and sheriff ’s offices, some of which say holding illegal aliens beyond their release dates harms community-policing efforts.
Immigration officials said the denials pose a public
safety threat, as people who previously would have been placed in federal custody once they were eligible to leave jail are being released into communities where they could commit new crimes.
In the first eight months of this year, immigration agents filed roughly 105,000 requests for local agencies across the country to hold illegal aliens for up to 48 hours after they were eligible for release on the allegations for which they initially were arrested, said Virginia Kice, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The agents wanted the foreigners held so they could take them into federal custody and start deportation proceedings.
Local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. declined 8,800 such requests, also known as detainers, during the same period. Those released include people arrested for investigation of domestic violence and drug charges, as well as others detained on lesser offenses but who had past convictions for crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon, Kice said.
Across the country, many local agencies no longer are willing to hold jailed foreigners beyond their scheduled release dates. They say illegal aliens should not be held longer than U.S citizens for the same crime, and turning them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement creates an atmosphere of distrust among community members.
Colorado stopped honoring detainers earlier this year, and New York City is considering doing the same.
In California, local law enforcement agencies scaled back their collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to comply with a state law that took effect this year limiting the use of immigration detainers.
After a federal court in nearby Oregon ruled a woman’s constitutional rights were violated when she was held in jail without probable cause, some agencies stopped hon- oring the requests altogether.
Five Southern California counties no longer honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s requests, said David Marin, deputy field office director for the agency’s enforcement and removal operations in the greater Los Angeles area.
He said he’s shifted at least 40 agents from screening and transporting arrestees to teams working in the field to track down people they believe are in the country illegally.
It takes more manpower to do so and puts his staff at greater risk, Marin said. And he believes that some of the foreigners who are being released will commit new crimes, adding that his agency has filed multiple detainers this year for some illegal aliens, which indicates they have been rearrested.
“There’s a lot of crimes we could probably prevent if people would just honor our detainers,” Marin said. He noted that because of a prison overhaul, local jails in California now house more lower-level felons who previously would have gone to state prison.
In Illinois, a man who was released from jail despite a 2011 request by immigration authorities to detain him shot and killed his 15-year-old girlfriend earlier this year, Kice said.
Some California sheriff’s officials, however, said they’re simply following the latest law governing the conditions under which anyone can be held by law enforcement.
In Riverside County, Chief Deputy Jerry Gutierrez said the Oregon ruling coupled with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo indicating the detainers were requests, not requirements, prompted his agency to stop honoring them.
“If we were to honor them, it would expose the county and the department to civil liability,” he said. “Any person who is ordered to be released, we would be releasing them the same way.”
In San Bernardino County, Deputy Ruben Perez said the sheriff’s office has reported no problem with repeat offenders but it might be too soon to tell.
The change is welcomed by immigration advocates, who have long fought the requests to continue detaining people after they’re eligible for release from jail, whether on bail or at the conclusion of a criminal case.
They say illegal aliens in communities that honored Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s requests have been afraid to report crimes, and the policy change will improve, not hamper, public safety.
Chris Newman, legal director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said deportation should not be used as a form of punishment.
“There has been an insidious erosion of constitutional rights protections,” he said. “Immigrants and citizens should be treated alike by our criminal justice system.”