GAO report: Immigration enforcement program needs better safeguards
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 By SEAN REILLY

WASHINGTON — More controls are needed on a program that deputizes police in Alabama and other states to enforce federal immigration laws, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency.

Among other shortcomings, the program has not spelled out how state and local police are supposed to use their enforcement authority, the report says. Managers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, also have not devised yardsticks to measure performance, the reviewers added.

In a written response included with the report, an official for the Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses ICE, said the agency has begun adopting recommended changes.

"While internal management controls can be improved, the program itself is working," wrote Jerald Levine, adding that it resulted in the detention of some 34,000 aliens in fiscal 2008. The bulk of those either agreed to leave the United States voluntarily or were put on track for deportation, he said.

In 2003, Alabama became only the second state in the country to join the effort, which allows state troopers to make immigration-related arrests in the course of their normal duties.

Officers receive special training and are supervised by ICE agents, according to the Alabama Department of Public Safety.

Out of 756 troopers with arrest powers, 54 are currently participating, said Dorris Teague, a department spokeswoman, who called the program "extremely successful."

Asked for statistics on state immigration enforcement activities in fiscal 2008, Teague said those figures would have to come from ICE.

There, an employee referred the request to the Department of Homeland Security, where a spokesman could not immediately provide the number of arrests in Alabama.

Created in 1996, the program's popularity has grown modestly in recent years amid concerns that federal agents need help in dealing with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Critics have warned that it might keep foreign-born residents from reporting crimes out of fear that local police will question them about their immigration status.

As of October, 67 state and local agencies around the country were enrolled in the program, according to the GAO report. In Alabama, the only other participant is the Etowah County Sheriff's Department, according to ICE's Web site.

ON THE NET: The report, titled "Immigration Enforcement: Better Controls Needed over Program Authorizing State and Local Enforcement of Federal Immigration Laws," can be found on the Internet at www.gao.gov.

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