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City’s top three law officers meet regarding illegals
By Jared Allen, jallen@nashvillecitypaper.com
August 27, 2006

A number of recent high-profile crimes involving illegal immigrants — and not an actual immigrant crime wave — may be behind a series of meetings that Davidson County’s top three law enforcement officials have been holding to discuss changing the way Nashville deals with “criminal immigrants.”

For some time now, Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas, District Attorney Torry Johnson and Sheriff Daron Hall have met regularly “in an effort to develop a plan for significant reform in the way criminal immigrants are processed in Nashville,” they said in a joint statement issued this week.

After Tuesday’s arrest of Ivan Moreno, a 30-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who was charged with the brutal murder of his 74-year-old next-door neighbor — and who became the latest illegal to make headlines with an alleged crime — the three law enforcement officials last week acknowledged the meetings publicly for the first time.

“While it is premature at this point to announce any plans or initiatives, suffice it to say that the three of us are working closely with the federal government to develop a system to better protect our citizens from immigrants who commit criminal acts and show a blatant disregard for our laws,” the two-sentence statement read.

None of the three would comment beyond the scope of the statement issued Tuesday, and spokespeople for all three officials said their bosses had agreed not to provide any details about the meetings until a “more appropriate time.”

But two of those spokespeople did say Serpas, Johnson and Hall are meeting to address what they all consider to be a serious situation that needs addressing.

“All I can say is that the problem is not going unnoticed, and our three offices are looking into some local solutions,” said Susan Niland, spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office.

But statistics provided by Hall’s office — which processes all criminals within the Davidson County jail — do not show dramatic increases in the number of immigrants entering the Davidson County justice system.

In fact, since Metro fiscal year 2002 (all fiscal years end June 30), the number of booked individuals who had birthplaces listed as “outside the United States” has increased by only 3 percent.

In addition, the number of federal immigration holds placed on Davidson County inmates has fallen regularly over the same time period.

In 2002, the federal government issued 202 holds on illegal or suspected illegal immigrants arrested in Davidson County. In 2005, the number was 169. And in fiscal year 2006, the number was 157.

According to Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron, however, the criminal immigrant problem in Nashville is not being measured by numbers alone.

“Is there an issue with criminal immigrants?” Aaron asked. “I think one only need look at some of the cases we’ve had this year.”

Aaron cited the following cases of illegal or suspected illegal immigrants: Gustavo Reyes Garcia, a serial drunk driver who allegedly killed a Mt. Juliet couple in a traffic incident; Jose Sosa, a teenager who was charged with stabbing to death a mother and her daughter in South Nashville; and Julio Villasana, a Kentucky man who has been charged with the vehicular homicide of Gibson Guitar employee Charlie Derrington.

“So is there an issue? Yes,” Aaron said.

“I think it would be fair to say that the meetings between the three began in earnest after the [Garcia] case,” he added.

Nashville is hardly alone in feeling the need to cope with a real or perceived rise in crime committed by illegal immigrants. And in some parts of the country, drastic measures are being enacted to combat the phenomenon.

Last month, the mayor of Hazleton, Penn., announced the enactment of an ordinance banning all illegal immigrants from the city limits. According to a report this week in The New York Times, Hazleton Mayor Louis J. Barletta said the act was needed to curb a “surge in crime committed by illegal immigrants.”