Thread: CELL PRONE

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CELL PRONE
February 06, 2006
Cari Hammerstrom
The Monitor


New crimefighting unit to combat law-breaking illegal immigrants crowding Hidalgo County Jail

McALLEN — Federal and state governments have funneled more than $1 million into Hidalgo County over the past three months to help incarcerate and investigate the rising number of illegal immigrants who commit crime in the area.

Hidalgo County is so inundated with undocumented immigrants who commit felonies and misdemeanors that more money came in from Washington last year than it did for some entire states so local authorities could get a handle on the costs associated with their incarceration.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance’s State Criminal Alien Assistance Program gave Hidalgo County $714,808 in November, for the reporting period between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004, while statewide, only Harris County and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice received more.

In early January, county commissioners approved and accepted a separate $367,500 grant from Gov. Rick Perry’s office, dubbed "Operation Linebacker." The grant is part of a plan the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition developed to enhance border security.

Hidalgo County’s share of the Operation Linebacker pot will be used to set up the Criminal Illegal Immigrant Unit to help initiate investigations of undocumented immigrants suspected of criminal activity. The new unit, which begins work today, will be staffed with one sergeant and four experienced investigators, and it will aid federal officials in identifying criminal illegal aliens — a term law enforcement officials commonly use — in the county jail so that the offenders are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

These grandiose grants — one is part of a federal program that awarded more than $287 million nationwide in fiscal year 2005 and the other stems from the state’s $6 million Operation Linebacker budget for the 16 counties on the Texas-

Mexico border — highlight the huge problem facing law enforcement officials in border communities, where non-U.S. citizens regularly commit crimes on U.S. soil.

Criminal illegal aliens take up jail beds, cost the taxpayers more money and clog the state judicial system, experts say.

And it is not only the high-profile gang members from El Salvador — the Mara Salvatruchas — who are creating headaches and straining finances.

Each day across the Rio Grande Valley, non-U.S. citizens are charged with crimes, both heinous and petty, in the local municipal court. Almost all of those offenders make their way to county jail.

According to the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance, more than a quarter of the approximately 400,000 days spent in the Hidalgo County Jail during the course of the 365-day period belonged to criminal illegal aliens convicted with at least one felony or two misdemeanors. (Days spent in jail during the pre-trial period were counted only if the criminal illegal alien was convicted of the crime.) The Hidalgo County Jail held 3,335 eligible criminal illegal alien inmates for the fiscal year 2005 reporting period, up from 3,136 criminal illegal alien inmates in 2004.

These numbers have been confirmed through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vetting process, which runs inmate records through a series of databases to verify accuracy.

The Hidalgo County jail has approximately 1,200 beds.

Not only do thousands of criminal illegal aliens crowd the jail, but many make repeat appearances.

"We are seeing the same names over and over and over again," said Sheriff Lupe Treviño, commenting on the high recidivism rate of criminal illegal aliens.

This seemingly endless cycle makes the tension between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies absolutely palpable, as they disagree over whose job it is to secure the border and curb illegal immigration.

The feds keep trying to shift the responsibilities to local jurisdictions, Treviño said, and "I will not do their job anymore than I expect them to do mine."

Treviño said it is clear illegal aliens convicted under the state’s judicial system were not prosecuted under the federal system when they illegally re-entered the United States after deportation — that is, if those eligible for deportation were ever deported for their crimes in the first place.

The Criminal Illegal Immigrant Unit will hopefully rectify this problem, he said.

The main goals of the Sheriff’s Department Criminal Illegal Immigrant Unit are primarily to stop crimes before they happen by gaining intelligence in illegal immigrant communities, and secondly, to form a partnership with agencies such as the Border Patrol and ICE so that when criminal illegal aliens are finished serving out their time in the state criminal justice system, they are not free from facing up to federal immigration charges. The unit will also conduct covert surveillance on the banks of the river to enforce state laws.

The unit was not designed to enforce immigration law, however.

The investigators will not be knocking on doors or responsible for checking peoples’ immigration status, Treviño said.

While the Operation Linebacker grant was designed so that border deputies could act as the second line of defense after the Border Patrol, the real problem here is not terrorism, the sheriff said.

"That’s just not the reality. People are being overrun by crime in more serious tangible ways," Treviño said.

He is not saying all illegal immigrants are criminals, but illegal immigration does increase the amount of crime in Hidalgo County.

"The whole intent is to rid the system of the criminal illegal immigrant element."

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Cari Hammerstrom covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4424.

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