N.C. - Sheriff plans to renew immigration enforcement agreement
Posted on Friday, September 04 @ 00:45:02 EDT
Topic: immigration and customs enforcement
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 A federal/county illegal immigration enforcement program will continue at the Alamance County jail.
On Thursday, Sheriff Terry Johnson said there is “no doubt” that he will sign a new memorandum of agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to maintain the 287(g) program, which has been in place at the jail since February 2007. The program, identifies and processes illegal immigrants taken into custody after officers arrest them on state charges.
Topics = Illegal Immigration, Sheriff Terry Johnson, 287(g) program, ICE detentions, illegal immigrants, Department of Homeland Security
September 3, 2009
Robert Boyer
TheTimesNews.com
Freedom Communications, Inc.
Johnson didn’t give a specific time for putting his name on the dotted line, but said he will sign the new agreement once “everything is sufficient to both parties.”
On July 10, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that all 287(g) agencies had to sign a new agreement within 90 days if they wanted to remain in the program.
Johnson and the sheriffs with 287(g) programs in Mecklenburg, Cumberland, Gaston, Henderson, Wake, Cabarrus and Guilford counties, along with Durham police Chief Jose Lopez Sr. and York County, S.C., Sheriff Bruce Bryant, met with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials Aug. 28 and shared their concerns about the new agreement. Among them is a directive requiring 287(g) agencies to release employee files to ICE investigators if they request them.
Turning over the files would violate state law, Johnson said.
Johnson said he is confident that snag can be worked out, though, and said he has 90 days from the date of the Aug. 28 meeting to sign the new accord.
Federal officials assured him at the Aug. 28 meeting that an ICE prohibition against the use of Tasers won’t affect his jail’s status as a 287(g) agency, Johnson said.
The issue arose after ICE officials gave the county jail a “deficient” rating last December because of a sheriff’s policy that allows Tasers to be used on inmates. Inspectors initially gave the jail a rating of “acceptable” after conducting an annual ICE detention standards compliance review in August 2008.
Local jails can have Tasers, but can’t use the electroshock weapons on federal detainees, according to the intergovernmental service agreements that governs 287(g), ICE spokesman Richard Rocha told the Times-News recently. In addition to that agreement, which Rocha said handles “all of our needs and policies,” local agencies must sign a memorandum of agreement before they can take on 287(g).
Johnson has said he has no intention of changing his Taser policy. On Thursday, Johnson said the Taser prohibition doesn’t apply to his 287(g) program or local 287(g) inmates because they were arrested and placed in the county jail under state charges and therefore are not federal detainees.
Federal authorities knew about and didn’t have a problem with his jail’s Taser policy when they signed a 287(g) agreement with his office early in 2007, Johnson said.
A December 2008 overall review of the jail’s 287(g) program by ICE’s Management Inspections Unit seems to confirm Johnson’s current contention that the memorandum of agreement alone governs 287g) programs. But it also reports that Johnson, and some of his supervisors and deputies who work as 287(g) officers were confused about the issue.
As part of their summary, the reviewers reported that some sheriff’s officers “incorrectly consider … the (jail’s) detention services to ICE, as provided under the Inter-Governmental Service Agreement contract, as part of its 287(g) operations. The 287(g) officers assigned to booking duties avoid processing arrestees brought to the jail by other law enforcement agencies in the county to compensate for having to handle ICE detainees transferred in under the IGSA contract.”
Reviewers went on to say that Johnson “seems to consider” that the ICE detention services the county jail provided were part the jail’s 287(g) operation.
Johnson said Thursday that he has never considered that to be the case, but some of his officers might have been confused.
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