Thread: NC-Group: Documents show 287(g) program is ‘seriously flaw

Group: Documents show 287(g) program is ‘seriously flawed'
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July 25, 2009 - 10:37 PM

In 2008, the Alamance County jail was rated as "deficient" according to an annual Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Standards Compliance Review. A jail policy allowing the use of Tasers on inmates prompted the rating. Despite deficient ratings for the jail’s law library and recreation facilities, the initial overall rating was "acceptable" until federal officials changed it because of the Taser policy.

The revelation comes after Fairness Alamance, a local citizens’ group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request in May for documents from the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Bureau Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agencies who oversee the jail’s 287(g) program. (See the accompanying box on A2 for more findings.)

As a whole, the documents show that the local 287(g) program is "seriously flawed" and not running as federal authorities intended, says Fairness member Hannah Gill, a county resident and assistant director at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Among other things, the documents also show that Sheriff Terry Johnson "misled" the federal government and county residents about the local 287(g) program, Gill said.

Gill’s claims are baseless, says sheriff’s spokesman Randy Jones. The sheriff hasn’t misled anyone, and 287(g) is running smoothly and according to federal directives, Jones says.

The sheriff didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Times-News.

On July 10, Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano announced a new Memorandum of Agreement for all 287(g) agencies that calls on local programs to focus on drug traffickers, violent criminals and other major offenders. Local agencies have 90 days to sign the agreement or end their 287(g) programs.

The new MOA will gut the federal-local enforcement partnership and illegal immigration enforcement in general, some Congressional Republicans and 287(g) advocates say. The American Civil Liberties Union says the agreement isn’t strong enough because it recommends, but doesn’t require, 287(g) agencies to focus on major offenders, and provides no penalties for programs that don’t. Jones and County Commissioner Tim Sutton have said the new agreement has no substantive changes compared to the current agreement.

Since the program came to the jail in the spring of 2007, most of the undocumented immigrants Alamance County deputies have arrested who were processed for deportation were initially charged with traffic offenses.

At first, Johnson said the program would focus on dangerous criminals, but later widened the scope of the local program to include those arrested on minor charges like driving without a license. In April, a Fairness study showed that deputies had arrested about 850 more Hispanics since 2004 than the sheriff had reported to the commissioners. A sheriff’s study later acknowledged the reporting error.

Chief Deputy Tim Britt blamed the "grossly underreported" figure on human error and computer issues.

Citing a Pew Hispanic Center report that says 45 percent of the Hispanics in North Carolina were born in the U.S., Gill estimated that more than half of the Hispanics in Alamance County are here legally.

Without a focus on violent and major offenders, the program will make worse the "erosion of trust between a significant sector of our population and law enforcement," Gill said. "The program is a way of clearing our community of undocumented immigrants. Based on the arrest data … our resources are not being directed toward the most dangerous members of our community."

The supposed lack of complaints and Johnson’s statements to federal authorities that Fairness Alamance had a "positive impression" of the program are not true, Gill said.

During their December 2008 meeting with the sheriff at the jail, Fairness Alamance members lodged complaints and were "not at all satisfied" Gill said.

Gill also referred to comments by then-county Commissioner Chairman Larry Sharpe during an Aug. 8, 2008, board meeting. "I think our 287(g) program has gotten out of control. I think our sheriff’s office is targeting people for minor violations," Sharpe said.

Fairness Alamance and others have lodged verbal complaints about 287(g) at other commissioners’ meeting since.



The so-called complaints by Sharpe and others are really "criticisms" without specific examples by those who don’t like the program, Jones said. Aside from a subsequent complaint that federal authorities had already investigated and concluded there were no problems, "we’ve had no formal complaints from anybody," Jones said.

According to Jill Arndt, who supervises ICE’s detention and removal operations at the county jail, the deficient rating applies solely to the jail; the inspection "has nothing to do with the functioning of the 287(g) program," Jones said. The use of Tasers is a "safety issue" for detention officers and is "non negotiable" according to the sheriff.

A report finding that two task force deputies used their 287(g) authority improperly is incomplete and somewhat inaccurate, Jones said. The local gang task force officer went through 287(g) training but never used his 287(g) authority. Johnson had concerns about the Winston-Salem ICE task force and quickly pulled his deputy from it, Jones added.

The deputies were under two separate Memorandums of Agreement with the federal government, which led to some confusion over their duties.

The four sheriff’s officers who had their 287(g) credentials revoked didn’t do anything wrong, but simply were assigned to non-287(g) duties, Jones said.

The only change ICE Field Office Director Felicia Skinner recommended to the county jail after the findings of the December 2008 inspection by the Office of Professional Responsibility were to shift some of the officers’ schedules to allow for "better 287(g) coverage," Jones said. Jones added that while he couldn’t release a subsequent document addressing the "areas of concern" listed in the inspection report, the latter document does report that all the issues have been resolved. Skinner’s June 12 recommendations in the FOIA copy of the report were redacted.

Jones acknowledged there have been "bumps in the program" and things that needed to be clarified but said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez has told him the Alamance County program is one of the best and smoothest-running 287(g) initiatives.

Jones thinks that Fairness Alamance’s release of the FOIA documents is a "fishing expedition to try and find something that’s just not there" and "another effort to attack the 287(g) program and the sheriff’s decision to continue the program."

In 2008, 450 inmates were processed for deportation through the Alamance County jail," Jones said. Of those, 15 had outstanding warrants for removal and 36 had been deported at least once before. Such numbers show, Jones said, that the sheriff isn’t trying to round up all illegal immigrants in the county.



JOHNSON HAS said repeatedly that he is operating 287(g) according to federal guidelines.

FAIRNESS ALAMANCE

They also want county commissioners to "put pressure on the sheriff to … enforce the program as intended."

In April, the commissioners approved a resolution supporting the county’s 287(g) program by a 4-1 vote after rejecting a motion from Commissioner Ann Vaughan calling for an independent investigation.

Judging from initial reactions, it appears doubtful the commissioners will heed Gill’s recommendation.

Commissioner Chairwoman Linda Massey, who supports 287(g), said she hasn’t seen the FOIA documents. "I have no earthly idea on any of this stuff," she said. "I cannot make any comments until I talk to the other people involved."

Vaughan said she doesn’t know whether the program is running correctly, but based on the FOIA documents "I think the sheriff should step back and take another look at his program and make his program run correctly if it is in fact not running correctly."

Vaughan said she still supports "the original intention of 287(g)," though.

Sutton, one of the county’s leading illegal immigration enforcement advocates, said he still "whole-heartedly " supports 287(g). "I don’t think there’s any question that all the introspection is an attempt to find cracks in the program and get us to agree to some type of watering down of the program."

Federal authorities wouldn’t have sent Sheriff Johnson the new MOA to sign if they thought the program was truly deficient, Sutton said.

Fairness also wants a financial audit of the local 287(g) program "so taxpayers can understand what the true cost of this program is."

The FOIA documents also point out the lack of transparency at the Sheriff’s Office about 287(g), Gill said.

"There’s a lot of general information the public should be able to know about the program but it’s been difficult to obtain," she said. "If we had not gone to the trouble to make a FOIA request, no one would have had the information about the program."

The Sheriff’s Department is giving out all the information the federal agreement and ICE officials allow, Jones said.

After getting complaints from the media regarding information requests, "the sheriff would like to see ICE public relations personnel be more active and engaged with the press regarding the 287(g) program," the December inspection findings reported.

In the past, an ICE press spokesman has referred Times-News reporters back to the Sheriff’s Office for information after Jones or Johnson said ICE rules prohibited them from releasing some information.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Times-News e-mailed questions about the findings in the FOIA documents to Matthew Chandler, a Homeland Security spokesman. In a written response, Chandler said Friday the 287(g) program isn’t on any sort of probation.

"The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office and its officers have been valuable partners to ICE," Chandler wrote. "Since inception, the 287(g) program there has led to the identification of more than 1,100 potentially removable criminal aliens from Alamance County."


http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/jail-2 ... ntion.html

Being in this country illegally is a premeditated crime, along with driving without a license. Any why are they driving? To a job they are not allowed to work?
Years ago, a friend of mine decided to take my dog for a walk when I was not home. He was pretty trashed and the dog ran into someone's garage. He followed and the owners called the cops. He was arrested and the police were nice enough to bring the pup back in the squad car. He spent three days in jail for drunken dog-walking. Point being, why are these illegals, who have violated more laws given a free pass, while an American citizen gets thrown in jail?