ICE unit can help police with immigration data
Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 1, 2007 12:00 AM

A little-known center operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have helped Scottsdale police discover last year that Erik Jovani Martinez was an illegal immigrant who had been deported.

Martinez is the 22-year-old Mexican national who shot and killed Phoenix police Officer Nick Erfle last month, before he was fatally shot by police after commandeering a car and taking a hostage.

Scottsdale police did not run a check through ICE's Law Enforcement Support Center when they arrested Martinez in May 2006 because they did not suspect he was an illegal immigrant, said Sgt. Mark Clark, a spokesman. He was released because police did not know he had re-entered after being deported in March 2006.

Though Martinez indicated on his arrest sheet that he was born in Mexico, he had lived in the United States since he was 18 months old, spoke fluent English and was well "Americanized," Clark said. At the time, the local ICE office often did not respond to calls for assistance because they were short-handed, Clark said.

Jessica Vaughn, senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, said law enforcement agencies often don't contact the center as part of their routine checks, either because they are unaware the service exists or internal policies prevent them from it.

"I believe very strongly that if state and local police used this, there would be fewer dangerous criminals on the street," Vaughn said.

The center was created in 1996 to help state and local police obtain immigration- related information immediately while investigating foreign-born people involved in criminal activity, said Michael Gilhooly, an ICE spokesman in Vermont, where the center is based.

The center is staffed day and night and is accessed through the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, he said.

In 2004, 6,122 criminals and foreign nationals wanted for crimes were identified through the center, almost double the 3,310 identified the year before, ICE said.

Scottsdale police now contact the center on a regular basis, Clark said.
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