IL. Chicagoland: Cook County jail bans federal immigration officers

Chicagoland: Cook County jail bans federal immigration officers

By Michael Volpe Published: 11:32 PM 01/17/2012
Updated: 12:13 AM 01/18/2012

An official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Daily Caller that ICE agents are no longer allowed in Cook County jail, and haven’t been permitted to enter the premises since the beginning of last summer. That shocking revelation comes as local and national officials deal with the aftermath of a vehicular homicide case involving a criminal alien released instead of being turned over to federal authorities for deportation.

Saul Chavez, an illegal alien who already has a drunk driving conviction, has fled to avoid facing that felony charge.

A controversial Cook County ordinance, passed in September 2011, has precluded Cook County from complying with ICE detainers, procedures that allow the federal agency to pick up municipal inmates who would otherwise be released.

ICE placed a detainer on Chavez, but Cook County ignored it because of the new law.

According to an ICE official who spoke to TheDC on condition of anonymity, ICE agents are also no longer allowed inside Cook County jail.

“We can’t interview suspects to determine if they should be flagged by ICE,” he official said, also pointing out that the jail had already been gradually eroding ICE agents’ privileges before excluding them from the premises altogether.

Frank Bilecki, a spokesperson for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, confirmed that ICE agents no longer have access to the jail, claiming in an email that the new ordinance requires it.

Illegal Immigrants | Crime | Chicago | The Daily Caller

Where's the federal lawsuit at? What's up with that Mr. DOJ (Holder)?

Chicagoland: Cook County jail bans federal immigration officers

11:32 PM 01/17/2012

http://ox-d.dailycaller.com/w/1.0/ri...MzE&cb=4374001
By Michael Volpe


An official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Daily Caller that ICE agents are no longer allowed in Cook County jail, and haven’t been permitted to enter the premises since the beginning of last summer. That shocking revelation comes as local and national officials deal with the aftermath of a vehicular homicide case involving a criminal alien released instead of being turned over to federal authorities for deportation.

Saul Chavez, an illegal alien who already has a drunk driving conviction, has fled to avoid facing that felony charge.

A controversial Cook County ordinance, passed in September 2011, has precluded Cook County from complying with ICE detainers, procedures that allow the federal agency to pick up municipal inmates who would otherwise be released.

ICE placed a detainer on Chavez, but Cook County ignored it because of the new law.

According to an ICE official who spoke to TheDC on condition of anonymity, ICE agents are also no longer allowed inside Cook County jail.

“We can’t interview suspects to determine if they should be flagged by ICE,” he official said, also pointing out that the jail had already been gradually eroding ICE agents’ privileges before excluding them from the premises altogether.

Frank Bilecki, a spokesperson for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, confirmed that ICE agents no longer have access to the jail, claiming in an email that the new ordinance requires it.

“The ordinance that was passed on September 7 … requires the Sheriff’s Office to ‘Decline ICE detainer requests unless there is a written agreement with the federal government by which all costs … shall be reimbursed,’” he wrote. “It also stated that, ‘ICE agents shall not be given access to individuals or allowed to use County facilities for investigative interviews or other purposes.’”

The ICE official, however, insisted that access was denied long before the ordinance was passed, saying that agents “weren’t allowed into the premises before the ordinance passed, … back in the beginning of summer [2011].”

The finger-pointing has reached a fever pitch because of the Chavez case.

Police report that on June 8, 2011, Saul Chavez got into his 2002 Dodge Neon drunk and hit sixty-six year-old Denny McGann, who was attempting to cross the street, dragging him about two hundred feet with his car as he attempted to escape.

McGann died soon thereafter. Chavez, an illegal immigrant with a previous drunk-driving conviction, was arrested on the scene.

ICE immediately put a detainer on Chavez following his arrest. But because Cook County ignored it, Chavez was allowed to post bond on November 20 and walk out of the jail.

Chavez missed a December court appearance, his first scheduled hearing since he posted bond. He hasn’t been seen since.

A spokesperson for Jesus Garcia, the Democratic Cook County Commissioner, blamed the federal government, telling TheDC that “ICE had from June to November to issue a criminal warrant.” Garcia was the chief sponsor of the ordinance that precluded the county from holding Chavez long enough for ICE to pick him up.

ICE spokesperson Gillian Christensen confirmed that her agency “placed an immigration detainer on Saul Chavez at the Cook County Jail on June 10, 2011,” and said that the detainer “was still active at the time he bonded out of Cook County custody.”

Christensen also said that Chavez had never appeared on ICE’s radar before.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle tossed the Chavez hot-potato to Cook County’s bond court.

Preckwinkle spokesperson Liane Jackson told TheDC that Chavez should have been subject to a higher cash bond.

“If a convicted felon who is charged with another violent offense is released back on the street because his bond wasn’t sufficient, that’s a public safety problem and not an immigration issue,” Jackson said. “The [board] president’s goal is to make sure bond amounts fit the offense, so that tragedies like this can be prevented, whether the offender is an [illegal] immigrant or not.”

Jackson did, however, suggest that Preckwinkle would support revising the county’s controversial immigration law. “We are not against reviewing the ICE ordinance, and we are open to a dialogue on the issue,” she said.

Tim Schneider, a Republican from the northwest Chicago suburbs, has been the ordinance’s most vocal opponent. His office said he is currently crafting a new ordinance that would require the county jail to respect ICE detainers placed on suspects charged with homicide and other serious crimes. Schneider hopes to have an ordinance ready for the Cook County Board’s meeting on Wednesday.

The case of Saul Chavez is the latest in a series of similar lapses for which Cook county has earned widespread criticism. The Chicago Sun-Times featured the story of Eduardo Sanchez, an illegal alien who allegedly beat up a police officer during a traffic stop. Three other criminal aliens were also released after allegedly assaulting an officer in the Chicago suburb of Hanover Park.

Meanwhile, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office has backed away from the detainer ordinance, saying it would prefer a solution like the one in San Francisco County, where the sheriff has the discretion to comply with — or ignore — ICE detainers on a case-by-case basis.

Illegal Immigrants | Crime | Chicago | The Daily Caller

Preckwinkle fires back, defends jail policy to U.S. immigration chief
BY LISA DONOVAN Cook County Reporter
January 19, 2012 5:58PM

Updated: January 19, 2012 10:43PM


In a strongly-worded letter to the nation’s immigration chief, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says the controversial new jail policy she championed doesn’t put public safety at risk and didn’t pave the way for a suspect in a deadly drunken driving crash — believed to be living in the U.S. illegally — to bond out of jail and disappear.

In the letter sent Thursday, Preckwinkle also tells U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton he was reading only part of the law when he suggested the new county policy may violate federal law.

“The federal government can’t compel a local agency to use its resources to enforce federal immigration laws,” she said, a clear reference to keeping inmates for the federal government at the county’s expense.

In September, a majority of county commissioners approved a policy change instructing Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to ignore ICE “detainers” — requests from federal agents asking the sheriff to notify them when an inmate in a local case is about to be released. Included was a request from the feds to keep suspected undocumented immigrants for 48 hours beyond their scheduled release date so federal agents could question them and, if necessary, begin the deportation process.

The county stopped honoring such detainers, citing fiscal concerns but offered ICE the chance to contract with the jail and pay the $143 a day it costs to house an inmate beyond the scheduled release date.

The policy became a lightning rod for controversy in recent weeks, after Saul Chavez, charged last June in a fatal drunken driving crash, bonded out of jail in November and failed to appear at subsequent court hearings. An ICE detainer had been placed on Chavez, who claims home addresses in Chicago and Mexico, but the jail released him under the new policy.

The family of the 66-year-old victim William “Denny” McCann — killed as he crossed the street in Logan Square — has pointed the finger at Preckwinkle and the county commissioners who backed the ordinance, saying their brother’s alleged killer may never be brought to justice.

Morton seemingly joined in the chorus, with his own letter to Preckwinkle dated Jan. 4th. But Preckwinkle questioned how Morton could criticize her when his agency had five months to pick up Chavez while he sat in jail before he posted the $25,000 bond. She also questioned why immigration officials didn’t detain him long before, when he pleaded guilty in another drunken driving case in 2009.

Preckwinkle reiterated her stance that the bond set in criminal cases is the real issue. “If an individual is charged with a violent offense or is a flight risk then an appropriate bond or no bond should be set to address public safety,” she wrote. “Immigration status should not be the driving force for detainment.”


Preckwinkle fires back, defends jail policy to U.S. immigration chief - Chicago Sun-Times