August 2, 2007 - 11:21AM
Illegals identified in county jails
After sentences served, they are turned over to immigration for deportation
RYAN ORR
While America is dealing with turmoil over how to secure its borders to the south, San Bernardino County has interviewed 947 inmates from 64 countries other than Mexico.

It is a measure San Bernardino County is taking to make sure that people that came here illegally, then broke America’s laws, are not released back onto American soil.

In the past year and a half, county corrections officers have interviewed more than 4,200 suspected illegal immigrants and have placed immigration holds on just over half of them, with investigations still pending on many others.

As soon as they serve out their sentences they are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be deported.

Corrections officers in the county have actually been trained by ICE agents and exercise the federal 287 G program to allow them to identify illegal aliens, said Glen Pratt, deputy chief in charge of corrections for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

He said he believes Riverside County is doing something similar but San Bernardino County was one of the first to implement the program.

While the majority of illegal inmates hail from Mexico, several have been identified from countries as far away as Cambodia, Lebanon and Singapore.

Pratt said that in most cases they only focus on felony offenders.

“We’re not identifying everybody,â€