Nationwide problem affects Elgin police

December 19, 2007
BY NICOLE BROOKS AND STEVEN ROSS JOHNSON Staff Writers

ELGIN -- The United States Constitution deems immigration regulation the responsibility of the federal government.

But with comprehensive immigration reform a long time in coming from Washington, an increasing number of state, county and city law enforcement agencies throughout the country have taken a more aggressive approach in addressing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the country.At issue in many communities is whether this is the job of a local police force and, if so, how involved that agency should become in enforcing immigration laws.

"Local law enforcement has been frustrated with this for a good number of years," said Elgin Police Chief Lisa Womack. "If there was a local solution, I can assure you somebody in local law enforcement would have already figured it out."

A number of programs rolled out last August by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement have given local police departments expanded capabilities in identifying and detaining illegal immigrants.

ICE's Agreements of Cooperation and Communities to Enhance Safety and Security, or ICE ACCESS, is a program that incorporates 13 law enforcement measures, the most well-known being 287(g).

"ICE ACCESS is sort of an umbrella -- you don't sign up for the whole thing," ICE Spokeswoman Gail Montanegro said. "Local agencies would meet with ICE and determine what are the concerns or the needs of their particular community and see which of our programs might best fit those needs."

Working with feds

Womack said local officials support enrollment in some ACCESS programs. City council members said the same thing in their drafted responses to suggestions made by local anti-illegal immigration group, the Association For Legal Americans, or AFLA.

"We've already made contact with ICE about sitting down and talking about the ACCESS program, and what portions of that might be applicable here in Elgin," Womack said Tuesday.

Decisions regarding which programs are appropriate for Elgin will be based on "their (ICE's) limited resources and the community needs here, and that would include crime statistics, demographic breakdown, the whole nine yards," she said.

The department already works closely with ICE, Womack said, adding any immigration enforcement carried out by Elgin police must have "ICE authorization, ICE agent's signature and ICE agent presentation to a federal immigration judge."

And there are limits to a local agency's jurisdiction, according to Womack.

"One thing that I believe has not been made clear is that there is no program that extends deportation authority to local law enforcement," she said. "Even under all of the ICE programs, the deportation process is still under the authority of ICE."

Another program under the ACCESS umbrella is the Criminal Alien Program, or CAP, which focuses on identifying criminal illegal immigrants who are incarcerated in federal, state and local facilities, and deporting them before their sentences are up.

AFLA members have urged city officials to request that a CAP officer be assigned on a full-time basis to the Elgin City Jail. An officer is assigned at both the Cook County and Kane County jails.

"We approached ICE. It's not an option for us," Womack said. "They simply won't do it."

ICE Spokesman Karl Rusnok said CAP officers usually are assigned to larger facilities, while most local law enforcement utilize CAP by notifying agents when they suspect an individual in their custody of being here illegally.

"We obviously don't have the resources to have personnel at every single jail in the country," he said. "There are a variety of different means of working the CAP program."

Who's the enforcer?

Deputy Police Chief Robert Beeter said ICE will assign a CAP officer only to larger jails because "they're not going to get any bang for their buck at a local, city jail because they won't see the numbers with the limited personnel they have.

"It's not like we can go to ICE and say, 'Hey, give us a CAP officer for our jail.' It's simply not in their best interest. They're not going to capture as many (illegal immigrants) as they would in a county jail where everybody feeds into that."

But not all residents see the distinction between city, county, state and federal facilities and agencies when it comes to enforcement and illegal immigration.

"I think that in a lot of ways people don't distinguish a lot between different levels of law enforcement," said Marc Harrold, an immigration attorney who teaches law at the University of Mississippi. "They think if there's a law, and if it's a cop, then the cop should enforce the law."

However local law enforcement chooses to address a community's concerns, the onus ultimately lies squarely with the federal government and its inability to effectively keep illegal immigrants from crossing the nation's borders in the first place, Harrold said.

"The bottom line is that the only reason that any of this is an issue is because of the complete failure of the federal government to secure the borders," he said. "These are things that should happen at the border, and the only reason all this is happening within these neighborhoods and cities is because all these people have gotten there."