Thread: Deportation too late for some

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_ ... 7690c.html

Some more on Rep. Sue Myrick's law proposal along with some addititional info.

A proposed law may lead to a crackdown on illegal immigrants who commit crimes

By SARAH OVASKA, Staff Writer

Scott Gardner, 33, a Gaston County teacher, was killed in July by drunken driver Ramiro Gallegos, an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

Gallegos, 26, had five previous impaired driving convictions, including two in North Carolina, and he was listed in a national database of illegal immigrants after he was removed twice from the country.

He should have been deported again long before the accident, but immigration officials were never notified of his arrests.

"This shows how broken our system is, and it's got to be fixed," said U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick.

Lack of manpower and huge caseloads have crippled the immigration enforcement system.

Immigration officials aggressively pursue deportation proceedings for those convicted of sex crimes or thought to be members of criminal street gangs. But an untold number of others arrested and convicted on other charges, such as Gallegos, pass through the system undetected.

Myrick, a Republican from Charlotte, wants a new law bearing Gardner's name to require local law enforcement agencies to enter citizenship status into a national database when they make arrests.

Myrick wants to expand deportation rules for illegal immigrants who commit crimes and require the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to deport those convicted of drunken driving. Finally, she wants more immigration officers in North Carolina.

The Law Enforcement Support Center, a clearinghouse in Vermont, takes calls around the clock from police agencies nationwide seeking information on whether a suspect is in the country legally or whether there are any warrants on the suspect, said Tim Counts, a spokesman for the immigration agency.

North Carolina law enforcement agencies called the center 230 times in July, and 45 suspected illegal immigrants were ordered detained as a result, according to ICE.

But some Triangle local law enforcement agencies did not know the center existed.

"We're not aware of it," said Maj. William Harman of the Siler City Police Department in Chatham County. His officers usually contact local immigration agents directly but receive help in only the most serious of crimes, he said.

Other agencies simply don't report suspected illegal immigrants.

Two Triangle district attorneys, Wake County's Colon Willoughby and Durham County's Mike Nifong, both said their offices have no policies to report someone they are prosecuting who they suspect is in the country illegally. (The need to have one!)

The ones who do report add to the growing caseload for local Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

At the Wake County jail in downtown Raleigh, Sheriff Donnie Harrison has someone in his office fax a list of suspected illegal immigrants he has in custody every week to the Cary ICE agents who are responsible for enforcing immigration laws in 32 North Carolina counties.

"You got to start somewhere," Harrison said. (Good for Sheriff Harrison!)

Stretched thin

In North Carolina, the immigration agency has three field offices -- in Cary, Charlotte and Wilmington. The number of agents in each office is kept secret by a Department of Homeland Security policy that prevents public release of where its agents and employees are stationed. (SSShhhhh, don't tell anyone but they are in...Cary, Charlotte and Wilmington)

Tom O'Connell, resident-agent-in-charge for the Cary office of the immigration agency, said the agents must dedicate their time to pursuing convicted felons, those with a criminal history or others that could be a harm to the country.

He said he used to begin deportation proceedings on those with multiple drunken-driving offenses but stopped after the immigration appeals court ruled that multiple convictions do not make an individual an aggravated felon.

For those convicted of more minor offenses, immigration officials choose when to initiate deportation proceedings, depending on the severity of the crime and the circumstances.

"It's kind of a judgment call on my part," O'Connell said.

One such call came to light last year, when Horacio Benitez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, appeared in Wake Superior Judge Narley Cashwell's court to answer for a third felony committed in Wake County. Benitez should have been deported after his first crime.

Prosecutors had written immigration officials twice before, but Benitez was never deported. Immigration officials put a detainer on him once, meaning they wanted to conduct an investigation, but the detainer was misplaced when Benitez went to state prison from jail.

"I was astounded that someone could commit this many felonies and [the immigration service] never did anything about it," Cashwell said at the time.

Those who are picked for deportation, in many cases, are given notices to appear in Atlanta's immigration court. Four out of 10, however, fail to show up. They join a national backlog of 465,000 fugitive immigrants. (Do the illegals get to Atlanta on their own? No wonder they have no shows. We need to hold this court here.)

High caseloads and high employee turnover were cited as concerns in the 10-year strategic plan for the ICE's Office of Detention and Removal, released in June 2003. The office currently has 600 openings nationwide that have not been filled. (Most of these positions are federal law enforcement slots and they will not take new hires that are past the age of 36. They really need to up the age limit till these slots are filled.)

Myrick expressed concern that Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn't filling its vacant positions. A seven-person immigration fugitive operations team for the Charlotte area was scheduled to be in place at the end of this month, but the jobs haven't been filled, she said. She fears that a similar task force planned in Raleigh next year may face the same fate.

A funding gap

Hiroshi Motomura, who teaches immigration law at UNC-Chapel Hill, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement's $4 billion budget is not enough to enforce laws across the board.

"There's such a disconnect there between the way they enforce the law and the way it's written," he said. "You've got an agency that's not funded at levels at where they can do more than whatever the political priority of the day is."

Still, the system struggles on.

Benitez finished serving a year-long sentence in a North Carolina prison in mid-August and was transferred to immigration authorities for deportation, DOC records show.

Gallegos is in prison, serving time for a drunken driving charge and still faces murder and drunken driving charges in connection with Gardner's death. If convicted of murder, he would face deportation at the end of his sentence.

Staff writer Sarah Ovaska can be reached at 829-4622 or sovaska@newsobserver.com.

http://www.ice.gov/graphics/lesc/

Law Enforcement Support Center.

Everyone should make sure their local Police and Sheriff agencies are aware of this.

It's no wonder police get a lot of crappy responces from local ICE people. The local PD's are probably waking up some guy or gal in the middle of the night to ask questions when they could be calling the Support Center where they have employees there specifically for this purpose.