Thread: Immigrant Criminals Going Free Instead Of Facing Deportation

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Immigrant Criminals Going Free Instead Of Facing Deportation
By LINDSAY PETERSON The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 15, 2006


TAMPA - The immigration agent didn't like the looks of Manuel Pardo's Social Security card. When the 20-year-old from Mexico was questioned, he admitted it was fake.

Pardo and several other immigrants were picked up at a brothel in Dover that night in June 2003, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office report shows. Five months earlier, Pardo tried to attack some people with a shovel and was charged with aggravated assault. He served 24 days in county jail.

After Pardo was picked up at the brothel, the federal immigration agent ordered him to remain in Orient Road Jail until he could be transferred for deportation proceedings.

Federal officials said Pardo was deported, but three weeks ago he was back in the county jail, charged with driving without a valid license. Although it is a felony to return to the United States after deportation, he was released on $500 bail.

He walked out nine hours after he was picked up.

As lawmakers debate what to do with at least 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, federal officials struggle to catch and detain those with criminal records.

Homeland Security officials say they don't have the space to hold every undocumented immigrant they pick up, so they focus on the lawbreakers.

At the end of their jail and prison terms, however, tens of thousands of immigrants who could be deported go free instead, according to a recent report from Homeland Security's inspector general.

A new federal plan to screen prison and jail logs more aggressively for deportable inmates is likely to fail without at least 8,500 more detention beds, a 40 percent increase, it stated.

'It's Getting Worse'
The problem has been building for years, said Rich Pierce, former Border Patrol senior agent based in Tampa and now executive vice president of the agents' union, the National Border Patrol Council.

"It's terrible the number of people being let out of the jails and prisons," he said.

"It's getting worse," said the union's president, J.T. Bonner, an agent based in San Diego. "We don't have enough money for bed space. We don't have the resources to check the prisons.

"It's very discouraging," Bonner said. "These aren't the people that most people envision when they think of the hardworking alien. A lot of them are very hard-core criminals."

More than 300,000 inmates next year will be what the report calls deportable immigrants. These are undocumented immigrants, such as Pardo, or immigrants with green cards who lost the right to remain in the United States because of their crimes.

Pardo could not be reached for comment.

Most of these immigrants are freed at the end of their sentences, the report stated. The government lacks the money to find and hold them in federal custody while their deportation hearings are completed.

The report also said immigrants with past convictions often are released after an arrest. From 2001 through 2004, nearly 30,000 immigrants with criminal records were picked up in the prisons, traffic checkpoints or other immigration checks, and then let go.

"Whether they were released because of a lack of detention bed space or for some other reason could not be determined because such information is not tracked," the report stated. "What is known, however, is that the number of criminal aliens being apprehended and released has increased sharply."

State prison officials say they work closely with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. They tell ICE when someone born outside the country enters prison. When the inmate approaches release, they check to see whether ICE wants the inmate held for a transfer to federal custody.

To help with the screening, ICE has agents in two of the three facilities where inmates are processed before starting their sentences.

State corrections officials say that over the past two years, ICE chose to detain 1,781 inmates from Florida's prisons. A federal database used to reimburse states for incarcerating immigrants shows that about 10,000 Florida inmates were classified as "criminal aliens."

At the county level, federal agents rely on the local jails to let them know whether an inmate is a candidate for deportation, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said.

Hillsborough Doesn't Use Database
In addition to offering training to local law enforcement agencies, ICE maintains a database of immigrants considered to be deportable because of criminal records. It expects local jails to check it when they book someone who was born outside the United States, though they're not required to do so.

Hillsborough doesn't. Instead, it gives ICE access to its jail logs, sheriff's Col. David Parrish said. "They can see everyone who comes in, so it's up to them. If they want to put a hold on someone, it's up to them."

If Hillsborough officers had checked the federal database the day Pardo was arrested, they would have seen his deportation order.

On any given day, Hillsborough law enforcement agencies arrest up to 20 people from other countries, many charged with driving without a valid license, and many, like Pardo, with previous arrests and convictions.

Polk County officials say they notify ICE when they know someone in their jail is an illegal immigrant, Lt. Keith Bowdle said. "But if they don't tell us they're illegal, they're let out like everyone else."

In Pasco and Pinellas counties, jail officials say they run the names of foreign-born inmates through the ICE database and notify the agency when they see a match.

"Sometimes ICE picks them up, sometimes they don't," Pinellas sheriff's spokesman Mac McMullen said.

ICE's Gonzalez responded: "We are an agency that has to prioritize."

Former Border Patrol agent Pierce said checking the local jails used to be a routine for agents, until the immigration service was overhauled three years ago.

"We'd get a list of names from the sheriff's office and go to the jail to talk to the ones that looked interesting," he said. "They took us off that. They said it's ICE's job, and ICE doesn't do it."

The immigration agency is trying to do more, the inspector general's report stated. This year, it assigned 260 immigration agents to search prison and jail rosters for people who should be deported. But without at least 8,500 more beds, the report stated, many of the tens of thousands of people they are expected to find will end up being released.

The problem in Florida worsened last month when the government closed the 300-bed detention center in Bradenton.

The White House has asked Congress for about 6,000 more immigration detention beds for next year.

Ultimately, the report stated, if ICE continues to troll the jails for immigrants, it will need much more - 33,150 beds, more than twice as many as there are now.

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834 or lpeterson@tampatrib.com.

I'm sorry, but this is just utterly ridiculous! Why in the world doesn't someone with deep pockets sue the federal government for failing to take the necessary action to protect U.S. citizens or for not honoring their oath of office? Releasing illegal alien criminals on the U.S. citizen population is criminal in itself. We're tired of the excuses. I'm fairly sure I speak for the majority when I say, we the people authorize the federal government to do whatever is necessary to deport every illegal that is picked up by federal and local law enforcement!

You cannot pick and choose whom to detain and whom not to detain. This catch and release is ridiculous. This guy was deported now he is back was arrested again and released on bail? I thought if you came back after being deported it was automatic jail time and upon release immediate deportation. What gives?

Yes you are right we should be able to do something legally with regards to our governments blatant refusal to enforce our laws.

If it was an American, you can be SURE they would find space. That's the outrage!