Thread: Federal Law Keeps Immigration Arrests Secret

Federal Law Keeps Immigration Arrests Secret

Posted: October 04, 2007 3:48 PM EST

Fayetteville (AP) - One of the differences that took effect when northwest Arkansas police agencies were given authority to arrest those suspected of violating the nation's immigration laws became apparent Wednesday--the names of those detained are secret, so long as police say immigration violations were involved.

That's a major difference from Arkansas law that requires names of arrested people to be disclosed by the agencies making the arrests.

Lawyer Charles Schlumberger of Little Rock, whose practice includes matters covered by the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, said that state law requires the names of arrested people to be made public. He said the state Supreme Court ruled in a 1991

Pine Bluff case that an agency's claim of an ongoing investigation--which allows some information to be withheld--does not apply to the names of people arrested.

In northwest Arkansas, officials announced Monday a task force using 19 trained officers from the Rogers and Springdale police departments and the Benton and Washington county sheriff's offices.

The task force works with agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agreement allows the officers to check the immigration status of the people they arrest and begin deportation proceedings against those in the country illegally.

Corporal Jak Kimball, a spokesman for the Washington County sheriff's office, said Wednesday that ICE had barred the sheriff's agency from releasing the name of the first suspect arrested by members of the local task force. Kimball said that, according to ICE, federal law prohibits state or local agencies from releasing information about federal immigration detainees who are held in state or local jails.

According to Schlumberger, federal law would trump state law in such cases, because local police were acting on behalf of ICE.

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/1007/461075.html

Well isn't this just idiotic. Grow up boys and figure it out...and release the names of those arrested!!!