Modbee.com
Convoluted system working in favor of illegal immigrants

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By JEFF JARDINE
jjardine@modbee.com

There is no hotter debate in this country, and particularly in California, than illegal immigration.

The mere mention gets folks' blood boiling, as evidenced last month when I wrote about some people who had entered the United States illegally from Mexico and obtained stolen or otherwise fraudulent Social Security numbers. They used the false IDs when they bought cars from used-car lots in Ceres and Modesto.

Then, through a Bay Area attorney, they filed civil lawsuits against the dealers, claiming that they were not provided with Spanish-language contracts.

Ceres police worked with one of the dealers to arrest three of the illegal immigrants who filed the lawsuits, two of which since have been dismissed. One person was deported to Mexico. The others were released because there was no room at the county jail, and the district attorney opted not to prosecute them based upon the evidence presented by police.

The episode generated dozens of comments on modbee.com, along with several letters to the editor — the majority decrying the district attorney's decision at the time not to pursue charges.

I suspect only illegal immigrants using phony IDs to buy cars and then suing over the paperwork could make you feel sympathy for a used-car dealer.

But this story goes much deeper that those three cases. It's emblematic of a problem in which illegal immigrants frequently benefit from a convoluted system.

It starts at the top, where the feds enact immigration laws but enforce them selectively and loosely at best, in no small part because agriculture relies on the supply of migrant labor.

Consequently, the federal government relies on state and local law enforcement agencies to do its policing, then reneges on paying its share of the jailing costs as promised, Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager said.

"The feds are supposed to be reimbursing the counties for holding (illegal immigrants)," she said.

The checks seldom arrive.

And as strange as this might seem, being in this country illegally constitutes a federal crime, but not a state crime.

Fladager said her office can prosecute only crimes against the state, meaning the state of California. Those would include crimes such as the ID thefts depicted in the car-dealer cases.

"We can't prosecute someone just for being here illegally," Fladager said. "That's a federal issue. Once you're in custody, we'll check you out."

Her office does work closely with the federal government, which has assigned one Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to cover all of Stanislaus County. He's based in Stockton, but uses a cubicle in the district attorney's office when he's here.

He'll interview inmates at the jail to determine their status and can choose to deport them, depending upon the type of crime. Someone charged with murder, rape or another violent crime won't get deported. But those facing charges in nonviolent crimes are strong candidates — especially when the jails are full.

Sometimes, they're deported before standing trial in crimes committed in this county. In cases in which they've been convicted and sentenced to state or county jail time, they might be deported well before they would have been eligible for release.

It's not uncommon for them to be chauffeured to Mexico and return to this country before their jail terms would have expired.

Here's another glitch: Unless the federal government has issued an immigration detainer — keeping an illegal immigrant in custody — the suspect generally is eligible for bail in a nonviolent offense.

For a crime with, say, a $5,000 bail amount, the bond agent charges $500. In theory, if his client bolts for Mexico, the bond agent would have to pay the court the $5,000. But a state appeals court ruling in 2000 enabled bondsmen to petition the court to exonerate the bail, meaning they don't have to pay the difference.

In essence, the court ruled that the bondsman can't be held any more liable than the Sheriff's Department that allowed the suspect to be released on bail.

The court's reasoning?

"The sheriff's office should have also known he's here illegally," said Dean Wright of the Stanislaus County counsel's office. Wright, a deputy county counsel, will go to court to oppose these exoneration petitions knowing the judges probably will grant them anyway.

About the only way he can win would be to prove that the bondsman somehow conspired to help the illegal immigrant get out of the country, and that's difficult to do.

So the bond agents routinely are absolved of the responsibility.

"There's not much we can do about it," Wright said.

In the meantime, the district attorney's office has to decide where to expend its resources, with violent crimes taking precedence.

In the cases involving the car dealers, their attorney was able to locate one of the people whose Social Security number was used by one of the illegal immigrants. The victim, an Arizona woman, wants the suspected ID thief prosecuted, and Fladager said her office will be reviewing the evidence.

The cycle likely will continue. The suspect could be convicted in a trial or plead out, with the district attorney using staff time and taxpayer dollars to see the case through.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, simply doing his job, could decide to deport the suspected thief before or after the case goes to court, and the illegal immigrant could sneak back into the country a week later, free to do it all over again.

Is anyone surprised this is such a hot-button topic?

To comment, click on the link with this column at www.modbee.com. Jeff Jardine's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in Local News. He can be reached at jjardine@modbee.com or 578-2383.

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Posted on 05/17/07 00:00:00
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/13593 ... 2168c.html