May 25, 2008, 11:02PM

Effort by ICE could be strain on suburban counties' jails

By HARVEY RICE and ERIC HANSON

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As Harris County meshes into a Homeland Security Department program to accelerate the deportation of illegal immigrants locked up in U.S. jails, suburban counties fear it could overburden their smaller staffs.

The department's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already enlisted Harris County and the six adjacent suburban counties in its Criminal Alien Program, allowing jails to report each inmate's immigration status.

The more ambitious parts of the ICE effort are to train local law enforcement in immigration duties and equip county jails with sophisticated technology that would give them access to the ICE fingerprint database.

Harris County is waiting its turn to send deputies for immigration duty training in the 287(g) program, but suburban counties worry about the strain caused by having members of a smaller department absent for the training.

Houston-area counties are among 52 counties under the ICE Houston office, which reports that about 200 illegal immigrants with criminal records are taken into custody every week.

The number of illegal immigrants in suburban county jails varies, from 317 over the course of a year in populous Fort Bend County to less than 10 on any given day in smaller Chambers and Liberty counties.

ICE does not keep numbers for individual counties, but deportations from the 52-county area have risen steadily over the past three years, rising from 4,880 criminal deportations in fiscal 2005 — about 58 percent of all deportations — to 7,100 in fiscal 2007, about 53 percent.

Nationally, deportations of all types have risen from 178,177 in fiscal 2005 to 280,523 in fiscal 2007.

None has applied
Although most area counties are interested in the training, so far none of the suburban counties — Montgomery, Fort Bend, Liberty, Chambers, Brazoria or Galveston — has applied for the program.

"Taking people out of pocket for an extended period of time would be a problem," said Cpl. Hugh Bishop, spokesman for the Liberty County Sheriff's Office.

The ICE training takes officers away from their departments for at least a month, ICE spokesman Greg Palmore said. Jailers receive four weeks of training and field officers five weeks, Palmore said.

Bishop said cost is another hurdle to participation. Although ICE pays for the training and provides housing, departments must continue to pay salaries for the absent officers.

Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo, spokesman for the Galveston County Sheriff's Office, said Galveston deputies already report illegal immigrants whenever they are encountered during the course of a normal arrest, and the department is leery of doing more.

"In terms of us going out and focusing on this, specifically, and doing only this, I think we would be doing the public a disservice," Tuttoilmondo said.

The Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office is eager to send officers for training if it can figure out how to manage with fewer deputies while others are training, said Maj. J.A. Leach.

The ICE project has generated little excitement among sheriffs statewide, said Steve Westbrook, executive director of the Sheriffs' Association of Texas. Westbrook said his informal survey found that many sheriffs are too concerned with understaffed departments and overcrowded jails.

ICE officers regularly visit suburban county jails to review and identify any new inmates who might be illegal immigrants. Leach said if ICE officers discover an inmate whose legal status is in question, a "hold for ICE" notation is placed on his file.

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