Marlborough councilor renews Secure Communities push

By Kendall Hatch/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Sep 29, 2011 @ 12:47 AM

MARLBOROUGH —

With debate about Secure Communities heating up statewide this week, a city councilor is again pushing to have Marlborough adopt the controversial program.

Ward 3 Councilor Matt Elder sent out a press release Tuesday calling for the the city to implement the federal initiative that tracks and deports violent illegal immigrants.

Elder said the recent arrest of Eduardo Alementa Torres, a 48-year-old illegal immigrant living in Marlborough, contributed to his renewed efforts. Torres, who had previously been deported three times, was arrested in Boxborough on Saturday on his sixth drunken driving offense.

"He's a Marlborough resident," Elder said yesterday. "What's to say he wouldn't travel home and do something in Marlborough? It just makes it closer to home."

Elder framed his argument for bringing the program to Marlborough against the backdrop of a debate playing out on the state level.

Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald have been making headlines in their push for increased scrutiny of dangerous illegal immigrants since returning from a trip to Washington, D.C., last week.

Evangelidis said yesterday that the three sheriffs, disappointed with Gov. Deval Patrick's failure to sign a memorandum accepting the implementation of the program this summer, met in D.C. with officials from Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Evangelidis said the feds told the sheriffs that Secure Communities will likely not be implemented in any more jurisdictions in Massachusetts any time soon, but said they suggested other measures.

He said the sheriffs have started applying to have additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at their stations during peak booking times. They are also applying to participate in the 287G program, which allows law enforcement agencies to train officers to act as immigration officials with access to federal immigration databases.

Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian said Secure Communities won't be able to significantly improve current practices. He said an ICE agent is stationed at the Billerica House of Corrections and the Middlesex Jail in Cambridge. He said there is daily communication with the agents, who can provide information on foreign-born inmates.

"We are doing everything that is outlined in Secure Communities and have been doing so for 15 years," he said. While each county has ICE officers, he said that ICE officials have told him that there are "tremendously varying levels of cooperation."

Koutoujian said Secure Communities could make things more automated and seamless, although he doesn't see the need to push the program so aggressively.

"We are much more cooperative and committed to this program than any other department," he said. "It's what a professional department does."

Patrick, following an education event yesterday afternoon in Marlborough, said the Secure Communities issue is a moot point.

"There is no program to sign," he said. He said the opportunity for him to enroll in the program has passed and said the program carries out tasks that can already be achieved by law enforcement agencies looking to do so.

City Councilor and state Rep. Steve Levy, R-Marlborough, said he would support the measure if it could be implemented.

"I'm definitely supportive of the program to the extent Marlborough can get in the program," he said.

Police Chief Mark Leonard said he has been trying to contact Evangelidis to hear a synopsis of the trip to Washington, D.C., and to find out of if there are ways Marlborough could more effectively handle illegal immigrants arrested in the city.

Leonard said he is unsure whether undertaking new initiatives would be a major deviation from standard operating procedure. When a suspect is entered into the National Crime Information Center - a national database managed by the FBI - any requests for ICE detainer warrants will pop up and officers can call the agency, Leonard said.

"ICE is already putting that into the NCIC database," Leonard said. "I don't know for sure what additional hits we could expect" if Marlborough was to enroll into Secure Communities.

Still, Leonard said he would be willing to consider any program that could reduce crime in the city.

(Kendall Hatch can be reached at 508-490-7453 or khatch@wickedlocal.com.)

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