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  1. #1
    Senior Member Skip's Avatar
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    ESCONDIDO, CA ILLEGAL ALIENS MAKE UP 25% OF ALL ARRESTS



    Escondido had 25 percent of county's illegal immigrant arrests in May

    By: PAUL EAKINS - Staff Writer


    ESCONDIDO ---- A disproportionately high number of suspected illegal immigrants picked up for crimes countywide in May were arrested in Escondido, according to a North County Times analysis of data from the Escondido Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    A quarter of all the suspected illegal immigrants detained by immigration agents at all seven of the county's jails in May had been arrested in Escondido, the data show. With 141,000 people, though, the city represents only about 5 percent of the total county population, estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau at 2.9 million.

    Escondido police began a new effort in May to track the number of illegal immigrants arrested in the city, police officials said this month. Officials said they hope to gain a better sense of what police resources are being used in handling illegal immigrants, but that no new policy is expected to result from the data.

    Of the 520 people arrested or cited that month in Escondido, 449 were sent to a county jail, where immigration agents who work out of the facility detained 109 of them for being suspected illegal immigrants, according to Lt. Bob Benton of the Escondido police.

    Those 109 people represent 25.5 percent of the 427 illegal immigrants that immigration officials say they detained in county jails during May.

    Benton said police are still trying to interpret the data.

    "This is a small snapshot, one month's time, and this could be an anomaly," Benton said last week. "We don't know at this point."

    More Escondido detainees

    When Escondido's May arrest data are compared with the average number of immigration detainees arrested each month by local law enforcement during an eight-month period, the numbers still show Escondido police arrested a disproportionately high number of suspected illegal immigrants.

    According to Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for the immigration agency in San Diego, the number of suspected illegal immigrants detained by immigration agents working at the seven county jails from October to May fluctuated during that period, with lows of 416 in October and 427 in May to highs of 845 in November and 745 in February. The average number of detainees per month was 666.

    Escondido's 109 illegal immigrant arrests in May represent 16 percent of that 666 monthly average throughout the county.

    Since the immigration agency started a new effort 1 1/2 years ago to increase the presence of its agents at county jails, the agency has detained an increasing number of suspected illegal immigrants, Mack said.

    The majority of those were detained at four jails where the immigration agency has the largest presence, Mack said. She identified those jails as the Vista facility for male and female inmates, the Las Colinas women's facility in Santee, the South Bay facility in Chula Vista and the central jail in downtown San Diego.

    Other large police agencies neighboring Escondido either had far fewer arrests of suspected illegal immigrants in May or don't track the data.

    While 109 out of 449 people sent to the Vista jail in May by Escondido police were suspected illegal immigrants, police in Oceanside ---- North County's largest city with 173,000 people ---- listed only 20 of the 800 people that officers arrested in May as suspected illegal immigrants, according to Sgt. Leonard Mata, the Oceanside department's spokesman.

    A spokesman for the San Diego Police Department said police there don't track the number of illegal immigrants arrested for other crimes.

    Cause unknown

    While the reason for Escondido's higher number of criminal illegal immigrants is unclear, law enforcement officials and a local Latino activist have their theories.

    About 15 percent to 20 percent of criminal gang members in North County are foreign nationals, some of whom are undocumented, Mack said.

    "It's a concentrated area for illegal gang activities," she said.

    Also, North County has a large Latino population, and undocumented immigrants tend to locate to areas where there are people who share their culture and background, Mack said. For example, Escondido is 43 percent Latino, according to city demographics.

    But Bill Flores, a retired San Diego County assistant sheriff and spokesman for El Grupo, a North County-based Latino activist coalition, has another theory. He said last week that Escondido has a disproportionate number of illegal immigrants being arrested because the Police Department has disproportionately focused its efforts on the Latino community.

    The more time police spend in a community, the more crime they are likely to find, Flores said. Escondido police have targeted Latino neighborhoods in response to the City Council's attitude toward illegal immigrants, he said.

    Last year, the council adopted a controversial ordinance that punished landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, but the law was abandoned in the face of a costly legal battle. Now, the council is working to create overnight parking restrictions on residential streets in an attempt to curb overcrowding, which some council members have blamed in part on illegal immigrant families living together in crowded homes.

    "The city is run by the City Council," said Flores, an Escondido resident. "The majority of this City Council has taken an extreme position on Latino issues, disguising it as an illegal immigration issue.

    "Law enforcement for that municipality is going to reflect the desires of the City Council. That's how it's supposed to work. This City Council has made it abundantly clear that they desire enforcement focus to be on Latinos and blaming Latinos under the guise of immigration to be responsible for a whole host of the city's ills."

    Benton said police don't target the Latino community, but base their law enforcement on weekly analyses of crime trends.

    "We target the neighborhoods where the crime occurs," Benton said. "Going into neighborhoods based on ethnicity, absolutely not. It never happens."

    He said he is surprised that Escondido would have a higher percentage of criminal illegal immigrants than other cities, and doubted whether that in fact is the case.

    "I donÃ*t think anyone knows if it's a disproportionate number," Benton said.

    Focus on illegal immigrants

    While Benton said that the Police Department isn't focusing on Latino neighborhoods, it does have a new policy announced in March of more thorough background checks for suspected illegal immigrants cited for even minor crimes.

    Under that policy, police officers detain people cited for lesser misdemeanors, such as driving without a license, driving with a suspended license or shoplifting, crimes for which they normally wouldn't be taken to Vista jail, if they don't have official identification.

    The suspects are taken to Escondido police headquarters, where an immigration agent who keeps an office there determines whether they are illegally in the country. If that immigration officer isn't available, police can make a phone call to another immigration office, Benton said.

    As a result, in addition to the 109 suspected illegal immigrants sent by Escondido police to the Vista jail for felonies or serious misdemeanors in May, a handful of other people cited for minor crimes were turned over to immigration officers that month, Benton said.

    Of the remaining 71 people who were cited for minor misdemeanors, 15 were held by the police and turned over to immigration officials for being suspected illegal immigrants, Benton said.

    The police usually catch these undocumented immigrants through random traffic checkpoints or when a crime is reported, he said.

    "We're not going to stop someone on the street just because they're walking down the street," Benton said. "But if they've violated our country's laws, they will be held accountable for that."

    Just because the illegal immigrants are detained doesn't mean they will always face deportation. Of those 15 minor crime violators turned over to immigration agents, four were held and 11 were released because they had no prior criminal history, Benton said.

    Mack said she didn't know the details of the specific cases, but that the immigration agency wants to target illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes.

    "We're prioritizing our resources like any law enforcement agency," Mack said.

    Contact staff writer Paul Eakins at (760) 740-5420 or peakins@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

    http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/06 ... ogcomments

  2. #2
    Senior Member Beckyal's Avatar
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    Illegals have no regard for american laws. They believe that they can do anything they want in this country. The federal government is not going to do anything to them.

  3. #3
    MW
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    Senior Member MW's Avatar
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    Just because the illegal immigrants are detained doesn't mean they will always face deportation. Of those 15 minor crime violators turned over to immigration agents, four were held and 11 were released because they had no prior criminal history, Benton said.
    What kind of B.S. is that? I'm sick of hearing President Bush and AG Gonzales tell us catch & release has effectively ended! Why is ICE releasing illegal immigrants back into our population? Once their caught, they should be deported, not questions asked!

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts athttps://eepurl.com/cktGTn

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