Thread: Collier sheriff: Immigration enforcement part of our job

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Guest commentary: Collier sheriff: Immigration enforcement part of our job
Don Hunter - Sheriff, Collier County

Saturday, October 7, 2006

The enforcement of immigration law is part of the Collier County Sheriff's Office primary mission to keep the community safe.

Our recent partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security in Operation Return to Sender was designed to apprehend criminal fugitives and law absconders. All of the people apprehended were wanted by the United States for law violations, civil and criminal. Some of those arrested are known to be violent felons.

My duties as sheriff under the "rule of law" are explicit. The expectation of the office of sheriff is for dispassionate enforcement of law, applying enforcement without favoritism or outside influence. In this way, law violation is addressed with uniformity and regularity and public expectations are created and reinforced.

Most of the public's interest seems to be focused on those arrested whose crimes were a composite of illegal entry into the U.S. and remaining in the U.S. without authorization, possession of false identity documents or credentials and working without authorization.

People detained for these federal offenses were incidentally contacted during the course of the arrest operation and were not original targets.

For context, when a deputy sheriff makes contact with a person violating state or federal law, he or she is sworn to take some action. The sheriffs of this state regularly enforce federal law with our federal counterparts. Examples of this local/federal partnership are bank robbery, drug smuggling and trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, child exploitation, kidnapping and murder. Immigration-law enforcement is simply another element of our responsibilities.

Further, the volume of foreign nationals who are illegally present allows terrorists and their accomplices to anonymously blend into the U.S. population. Estimates range from 12 to 20 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S.

Legal visitors to the U.S. in 2005 numbered 175 million people.

This suggests that the approximately 18,000 Border Patrol and interior investigators must find a few in the vast population of people here. This is an impossible task without assistance from local and state law-enforcement resources.

The objective is to remove as many of the approximately 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens through direct contact or enforcement attrition at work sites as possible. It would be much less difficult to remain anonymous in a hypothetical group of 20 million people than a population of 1 million to 3 million.

Our partnership with immigration enforcement extends back many years. Notable enforcement actions include Operation Razor, Operation River Chase and Operation Community Shield. Ongoing operations with the U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection and ICE provide enforcement of human- and drug-smuggling and trafficking laws along our coastal border.

From our limited research we have determined that 22 percent or more of our jail population admits it is illegally present in the U.S. (There are likely many more, who are unwilling to admit their illegal status.) We have determined that around 40 percent of our outstanding fugitive felons are suspected illegal aliens and, alarmingly, 88 percent of our murder suspects are foreign nationals here illegally.

Our research suggests that a segment of the illegally present foreign national population has a significant influence on our crime rate in this county. The fiscal burden represented by this population of illegal foreign nationals to the criminal justice system in jail costs, enforcement and investigation hours, depositions and fees, court and jury time and prosecutorial and defense staffing is an added concern.

Local law enforcement does not conduct large-area farm field or processing plant enforcement actions. The sheer volume of visa types, which number 230; the complexity of immigration law, which has been characterized as larger than the Internal Revenue Service code and just as complex; and the absence of local authority to stop subjects to inquire on their legal status, militates against such local independent enforcement action. Agents of the Department of Homeland Security (ICE and Border Patrol) have the requisite training and authority to make incisive inquiry of an individual's legal status.

Collier County residents and these agencies may rely on my continued interest and assistance in securing this nation and enforcing its laws.

© 2006 Naples Daily News and NDN Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.

Thank goodness for that. I wish other sheriff's departments and municipal departments would come forward and let their residents know what their policies are on illegals. I know in my county they have the right to ask and then notify ICE.

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Well, Dallas County is saddled with Lesbian Hispanic sheriff Lupe Valdez, so I think that there's precious little chance of our sheriff's dept. taking action.