Collier deputies begin training to identify criminal aliens
By Ryan Mills


Originally published — 10:11 p.m., August 21, 2007
Updated — 10:56 p.m., August 21, 2007

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/aug ... criminal_/?

Twenty-five Collier County sheriff’s deputies and corrections officers cracked open their law books on Tuesday morning and settled in for their first day of class

After a month-long cross-training program, the 25 deputies will become the first group of local law enforcement officials in Southwest Florida to be trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify criminal aliens who enter the Collier County jail and to initiate removal proceedings from the country.

The training will take five weeks for field level enforcement officers and four weeks for corrections officers, ICE reported.

At a news conference on Tuesday morning Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter said that once their training is complete, the deputies should have the ability to identify and begin removal proceedings for hundreds of criminal aliens currently in the jail.

A recent snapshot of the Collier County jail population showed that about a quarter of the population consists of self-admitted illegal immigrants. It costs about $9 million per year to house and feed those illegal immigrants, Hunter said.

“We will be able to say to you in a year that we’ve removed 1,000 criminal aliens from Collier County or perhaps it’s 700 or perhaps it’s 1,500,â€