Counties crack down on foreign-born drunk drivers

10:59 AM PDT on Sunday, September 23, 2007
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/k ... 026a2.html
Associated Press and KGW Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Clackamas County has reported more foreign-born drunken drivers to immigration authorities in the past month than in the previous 18 months combined.

The policy changes in Clackamas County reflect public outrage over the killing of 15-year-old Dani Countryman in Milwaukie, Oregon. The suspect in the strangulation murder of the Texas teen, Alejandro Rivera Gamboa, was an lilegal immigrant from Mexico.

It was later learned that Gamboa was convicted of driving drunk eight months before the Countryman murder but lwa enforcement officials failed to act on the opportunity to deport him.

More: Strangulation suspect in U.S. illegally:
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/k ... 34831.html

The crackdown on reporting foreign born drunk drivers began the day The Oregonian reported the missed opportunity in the Countryman case.

The Oregon State Sheriff's Association says that across Oregon, jails are making more referrals to immigration authorities.

Oregon law prohibits local law enforcement agencies from actively looking for illegal immigrants -- but the law does not stop police or prosecutors from reporting people after they're arrested.

More than 1,000 illegal immigrants in Ore. prisons:
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/k ... 0328d.html