Thread: L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca: Let us deport the bad guys

Obama's Catch-and-Release Policies Blunt Secure Communities

By Jessica Vaughan, May 8, 2012

Desperately seeking to acquire some credibility with the vast majority of American voters who want to see immigration laws enforced, the Obama administration is on a steady pace to complete implementation of theSecure Communities (SC) program in every state, perhaps even ahead of the 2013 target date. With Louisiana and Nevada most recently completed, the map is nearly all colored in. Rumor has it New England, possibly including the sanctuary states of Vermont and Massachusetts, could be finished next.
Will the full activation of Secure Communities nationwide mean the end of sanctuaries for criminal aliens as we know them? Not quite.Former ICE Official Dan Cadman Discusses
how Politics can Effect Secure Communities:View the Full Interview
The most diehard sanctuary jurisdictions, like Connecticut, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County in California, are pushing back and finding ways to obstruct ICE's ability to take custody of the arrested aliens identified through Secure Communities information-sharing. Some, like New York City and Chicago, have introduced such measures before SC is even in place. One pro-criminal alien group, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, has published a manual for activists on how to push this policy.
The most popular way to obstruct ICE is for local law enforcement agencies simply to refuse to honor ICE detainers. Detainers are requests from ICE to local agencies asking them to hold alien offenders for no longer than 48 hours until ICE can take custody. These sanctuaries have decided they will just say no to ICE, or will pick and choose which alien offenders they will allow ICE to take. So far, Cook County, Ill. (which includes Chicago), Santa Clara County, Calif. (which includes San Jose), San Francisco, and the state of Connecticut have adopted this stance. Cook County is the only one crazy enough to refuse to honor all ICE detainers; the rest pick and choose.
While it's a great way to pander to the most extreme open-borders advocates, there's really no need for these local governments to play games like this: The Obama administration has already managed to water down enforcement to the point where outrage over having to participate is completely unwarranted.Take Connecticut, for example. ICE activated Secure Communities on February 22, 2012. Of course, Yale Law School's Worker and Immigration Rights Advocacy Clinic is suing, and Gov. Dannel Malloy (latest approval rating 37 percent) announced immediately that his public safety department would review each and every ICE detainer to make sure the feds didn't overreach with their sweeping and merciless dragnet.
The governor's people have reviewed more than 100 detainers so far. They have found exactly one that they found to be objectionable — a visa overstayer from Poland who served three months in state prison for sexually assaulting his landlady. The state felt that this offender had been rehabilitated and should be allowed to go free. What gets me is that ICE agreed and apparently dropped action on this guy's case. I wonder if the victim and people in his old neighborhood would agree. ICE has not replied to my repeated questions on the status of the case, other than to confirm that they exercised "prosecutorial discretion". Perhaps the victim or the neighbors should contact ICE's new Public Advocate to find out how they are handling the case of this illegal alien convicted sex offender. (But no need to worry, he's been rehabilitated by Connecticut!)
This is not an isolated case. Under the administration's policy of "prosecutorial discretion", ICE officers are instructed to look for reasons to release even many of the criminal aliens dropped in their lap by local law enforcement. Earlier this year, ICE officers in Chicago released a man charged with 42 counts of child molestation, including incestuous rape — because the man has a U.S. citizen child, one of the key criteria for using "prosecutorial discretion". He was being "monitored" via an electronic bracelet, but has disappeared and likely will never face justice.
The administration has asked Congress to allow it to divert funds from its regular detention budget so it can release even more arrested aliens on electronic monitoring as an alternative to detention, since this is obviously working so well.
Another catch-and-release -- I mean prosecutorial discretion program was piloted last summer in Frederick County, Md., under the auspices of their model 287(g) program. Under this pilot, which was imposed on the county sheriff by ICE headquarters, the local officers (who have immigration enforcement authority) were directed not to issue detainers on aliens arrested for non-DUI and non-injurious traffic-related charges or misdemeanors. All those aliens arrested for driving without a license or similar criminal, but non-injurious offenses who posted bond or were released on their own recognizance by the court, were instead issued an appointment notice (Form G-56) to appear at the local ICE office in Baltimore to discuss their immigration status (or lack thereof).
It's noteworthy that these "minor offender" cases are only a tiny fraction of the 287(g) caseload in Frederick County and other 287(g) jurisdictions. Only five aliens qualified to get the appointment letter in lieu of a detainer over the two-month pilot period. This again demonstrates that local law enforcement agencies that actively cooperate with ICE are not using these programs to round up multitudes of harmless suspected illegal immigrants.
But what is most significant is that only one alien out of the five actually showed up for his appointment. The program has a failure rate of 80 percent. And since neither the issuance of the appointment letter nor the failure to appear are entered into the ICE databases, there is no DHS record of this offender — meaning that if he is encountered again (and again) he will be treated as a first-timer. Like Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts said, it's as if this administration just doesn't want to know where the illegal alien offenders are.The administration's response is that they lack the resources to deal with every illegal alien encountered, and they want to focus on the most dangerous or egregious. Aside from the fact that they always say "no thank you" when Congress offers to give them more resources, it's important to note that this administration is underutilizing the less costly alternatives to formal removal, such as voluntary return and expedited removal, which are appropriate for handling lesser criminal and non-criminal illegal aliens. Their choice is not formal removal or nothing, as they would like us to believe.What can we expect the Obama administration to do with an immigration law enforcement pilot program with a failure rate of 80 percent? Adopt it nationwide, of course! Watch for further directives from ICE HQ to be issued soon that will harden the prosecutorial discretion and "alternative to detention" policies so that more illegal alien offenders end up with a free pass to stay.
http://www.cis.org/vaughan/obamas-ca...re-communities

More than 5,000 illegal aliens deported from Travis county by Secure Communities.
People who hate illegal aliens being deported also hate Secure Communities.


S-Comm Emails

Sheriff and ICE Eager Pen-Pals

BY TONY CANTÚ, FRI., OCT. 10, 2014



When defending his aggressive implementation of the federal Secure Communities program – an Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiative that has led to the deportation of some 5,000 undocumented immigrants since 2009, from Travis County – Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton often suggests his deputies' hands are tied, compelled by law to reflexively enforce the program by placing 48-hour holds on arrested immigrants while their legal status is determined.

But internal emails between the Travis County Sheriff's Office and ICE officials reveal a much more collaborative relationship – a near-daily dialogue between the agencies tantamount to a continual implementation primer, including reliance on ICE for press advisories later tweaked by the TCSO for a locally generated feel.

The emails were obtained recently by Amelia Ruiz Fischer, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, and she shared them with the Chronicle.

"Sheriff and Roger," begins an April 1 email to Hamilton and TCSO spokesman Roger Wade, fromRichard Rocha, Enforce*ment and Removal Operations deputy chief of staff in San Antonio. "I wasn't sure if you were planning on putting out a release after all. I crafted a real quick release that might be able to help if you decide to. Again, completely up to you folks, but I think putting out a release with a clear message may reinforce the purpose of the news conference and provide a timely lead for the reporters."

Purporting to describe the more serious criminal element among people ensnared by S-Comm – 1,400 "egregious criminal aliens" since 2009, by ICE's reckoning – Rocha's template offers handy placeholders labeled "quote from sheriff." Hamilton later released the statement to the media, virtually verbatim, under the TCSO letterhead.



The lack of clarity as to who is ensnared by S-Comm, and on what charges, is illustrated in other emails. "Please pull up Roman Zuvieta and his criminal record and why he was deported and send to me before noon tomorrow," Hamilton asks Rocha in a March 31 email, adding, "Please don't tell me you can't pull this info up." Ultimately deported as a consequence of a recent misdemeanor, Zuvieta acknowledged a previous charge against him for domestic violence.

In the intervening years, he had expressed his contrition by hosting meetings at his church – with wife Carmen Rodriguez at his side – intended as sessions for couples on how to avoid domestic abuse.

On March 12, Rocha had floated a compelling case to Hamilton and Wade as a way to defend S-Comm. Rocha relates the tale of a suspect arrested but not initially placed on an ICE hold, as outlined in the strict practice of S-Comm. "I wonder if something like this would help instead of getting into the numbers," Rocha writes of the case – which took place not in Travis County but in Cook County, Ill. "Here's why we honor detainers," Rocha writes in suggesting talking points, stressing the release without ICE detainer of the suspect, initially arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. "Last month, that alien was arrested again for the killing [of] his ex-girlfriend and shooting her mother. (then more about your stance on detainers)."

In his first substantive interview on the S-Comm program for the Chronicle, Hamilton later repeated this pre-baked example in his defense of the program (see "Banned of the Free," July 4) – only later acknowledging it was not a local example, and never noting that it was an anecdote provided by Rocha and ICE.

Indeed, even Hamilton's claim that his hands are tied originated at the urging of ICE, as illustrated in a Feb. 5 email from Rocha. "Here is the information we are using to respond to reporters," Rocha writes. "I have been driving home the fact this is a federal information sharing initiative and that your office does not get to choose where the information is sent once it goes to the FBI. If you need anything just give me a holler."

Concerned about potential constitutional violations, many communities have opted out of S-Comm, declining to subject people arrested on minor charges to ICE detainers – meaning also, the information is never shared with the FBI in the first place. But Sheriff Hamilton and Travis County have declined even to consider limiting the program, in the process becoming one of the nation's most aggressive S-Comm practitioners. And, with the constant advice, feedback, research, and guidance of ICE on how best to justify the brisk rate, undocumented immigrants are being deported from the county at an average rate of 19 per week.

"One thing I would request is that we reinforce the message that the sheriff cannot deport anyone," Wade wrote to Rocha on Feb. 23. Wade has made the same assertions to the Chronicle – while failing to acknowledge that were it not for the TSCO providing a gateway to S-Comm, detainees wouldn't be deported after minor charges.

"Twitter has messages saying that they want the Sheriff to stop deporting people," Wade complains to Rocha. "I am replying that we don't deport only Federal Official can do that." A minute later, Rocha responded, "Right on. I'll get with our Public Affairs folks and urge them to work that into the statement." If the Sheriff's hands are indeed "tied" by his relationship with ICE, he seems peculiarly eager to offer them up for the handcuffs.

---

On Wednesday, Oct. 15, 6-8pm, the Travis County Democratic Party is hosting a public forum on Secure Communities at the Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River. Speakers will include Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton, Alejandro Caceres (Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition), Amelia Ruiz Fischer (Texas Civil Rights Project), Matt Simpson (American Civil Liberties Union of Texas), and Bob Libal (Grassroots Leadership).

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2014-10-10/s-comm-emails/