Thread: El Paso jail locks in feds' funding

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El Paso jail locks in feds' funding
Immigration enforcement yields new revenue during tight times.
By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
Posted: 04/19/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT
Updated: 04/19/2009 12:42:49 AM MDT


Faced with a budget crunch that forced him to lay off deputies, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa has tapped a new source of revenue: illegal immigrants.

Maketa has started leasing space in his jail to house an average of 150 immigrants a night for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also sent 17 jail deputies for training in immigration procedures so they can initiate deportations without waiting for federal agents.

ICE pays $62.40 a night for each detained immigrant, plus mileage for transport in sheriff's vans. The arrangement pumped $3.6 million into El Paso County over the past year and now provides 10 percent of the jail's budget.

But Maketa said the money is just one factor driving his broadening alliance with ICE.

"I feel like we're truly contributing to (solving) a national problem," said Maketa, one of 67 law enforcement agency chiefs nationwide who have had deputies authorized to enforce federal immigration laws.

His large-scale detention deal hasn't caught on with fellow Front Range sheriffs, but ICE officials have hashed out agreements to hold at least some immigrants for short periods in 40 of Colorado's 64 county jails. Nationwide, sheriffs and other local agency chiefs are lining up to do as Maketa has done in having deputies authorized to initiate deportations.

Several Denver-area sheriffs — annoyed at delays in relying on a limited number of ICE agents to handle possible illegal immigrants in jails — say they're considering sending deputies for federal ICE training.

"There's support from taxpayers to take the next step" in immigration enforcement, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said.

"In light of some of the things that have happened, obviously the case in Aurora of the kid that got killed in the ice cream shop and some other situations (involving illegal immigrants), we want to be doggone sure of who is coming through our jail," Mink said. "If we can use technology to do that, and additional training to do that — even though it's a federal responsibility — we are willing to do that."

A common sight in jails

On any given night, most jails in the Denver area and across Colorado hold suspected illegal immigrants. Under state law, jailors must notify ICE and, if ICE is interested and able, the agency places a hold on the inmate. If ICE agents fail to pick up the inmate within 48 hours, the inmate is released when local charges are resolved.

But that raises public safety concerns and is not something the public wants, said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, who added that he, like other sheriffs, had previously been reluctant to take on an immigration role.

"Everybody's attitude was: 'That's the job of the federal government, and we're not going to do it for them.' Well, when the federal government isn't doing their job, the sheriffs get frustrated and the citizens get frustrated," Cooke said. "We're going to do the right thing for the citizens of our counties."

On a recent night in Maketa's El Paso County jail, more than 200 immigrants from Mexico, Taiwan and elsewhere were incarcerated — outfitted in the same orange suits and housed alongside criminals including murderers, rapists and other felons with Taser-equipped deputies keeping watch.

About 70 percent of the immigrants were held for no crime — only the federal civil offense of violating immigration rules. They arrived at the jail in sheriff's vans that collect them from federal custody in Denver and Pueblo.

The rest were inmates who'd been arrested by police for crimes in the Colorado Springs area and then checked against immigration computers by one of the 17 trained deputies with access to the database. These deputies immediately start federal deportation proceedings — and start billing ICE for the cost of housing those inmates.

"When county budgets are decreasing, this is a revenue source," detention bureau chief Paula Presley said.

Now under a video hookup to federal immigration courts, a sheriff's meeting room may serve as a forum for federal judicial proceedings.

"It's hard because all my family is in Denver," Rodolfo Gonzalez, 19, said as deputies led him in shackles from a van. He faces deportation to Mexico.

No active patrols for ICE

For now, Maketa says he does not want deputies actively looking for illegal immigrants while on patrol — and the only deputies who are authorized to do immigration work are at the jail.

That's the same approach sheriffs say they're contemplating in Arapahoe, Weld, Jefferson and other counties. But not Denver.

Denver authorities oppose any increased collaboration with federal agents, beyond the notification all counties must make, under state law, when suspected illegal immigrants are jailed for crimes.

"We don't help out the IRS either," said Bill Lovingier, Denver undersheriff and director of corrections. Enforcing the civil offense of being in the country illegally "is a federal responsibility. It's a federal issue. If they want local help, they should provide us resources. We are already stretched."

The County Sheriffs of Colorado association remains "quite strongly against doing the feds' work" on immigration, executive director Don Christensen said. "We feel we can't get the support from the federal government that we should have. When we do find (illegal immigrants), they don't come and get them. They fill up our jails and we have to turn them loose," he said.

Federal officials recently told Congress that 951 deputies nationwide are authorized to work with some 6,000 ICE agents — resulting in 90,000 additional deportations over the past year.

A Government Accountability Office report recently concluded better controls are needed as federal officials enlist state and local police to enforce immigration laws. It found that the power shift prompted concerns that more local power could lead to racial profiling and intimidation by police.

Arguments against

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said increased local roles in immigration law enforcement "is a symptom of an immigration system that is completely busted."

Barring an unlikely influx of federal money, "converting our local police forces into operations that are focused on immigration is not a good use of our resources," Bennet said. "We should be concerned with felonies and other serious crimes and public safety. It is naive to believe that our police departments, which are already strained, county law enforcement, which is already strained, is going to be able to pick all this up. . . . We're not going to fix these issues until we have comprehensive immigration reform."

Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition spokeswoman Chandra Russo said the incarceration of growing numbers of immigrants alongside criminals in county jails is inhumane and wasteful. The power to initiate deportations "gives local law enforcement agencies more ammunition to do discriminatory policing," Russo said.

Some urban policing leaders, such as Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, contend local immigration enforcement undermines trust police need to fight crime in diverse communities.

In El Paso County, Maketa said his deputies have the same needs. "We need (immigrants) as witnesses. We need them to bring forward reports of criminal activity," he said.

"But that doesn't mean you completely ignore federal law. If you have an individual who breaks the law and is here illegally, they need to be dealt with — not given amnesty, not given some special preferential treatment that a citizen would not get. What is fair?"

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12174856

All illegals must leave our country...........give them no jobs, housing and/or social services of any kind, and they will leave.