Police to ask if suspect is citizen
By Michael Matza
Inquirer Staff Writer
TRENTON - Joining the nation's white-hot immigration debate, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram yesterday ordered police officers to notify federal officials whenever an illegal immigrant is arrested for a serious offense.

Milgram said the recent slayings of three college students in Newark - by a group of suspects that included two undocumented immigrants out on bail facing other serious charges - dramatically highlighted the need for a uniform policy on how local, county and state law-enforcement officers work with federal immigration authorities.

She issued the guidelines yesterday, to go into effect immediately. The need for them, she said, had been known to law-enforcement officials before the sensational Aug. 4 killings in a Newark schoolyard, but was "brought home to us by the tragic events."

Under the new rules, when a person is arrested for a serious crime, including driving while intoxicated, local police "shall inquire about the person's citizenship, nationality and immigration status."

Under the old system, it was a discretionary call, with some local departments making those inquiries and some not.

Now, if an arresting officer has reason to believe the person is not legally in the United States "he shall, during the booking process," notify agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency known as ICE. They in turn could take action to further detain the suspect pending a deportation hearing.

Officials in other states, including Colorado, have policies in place similar to Milgram's. In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, the state police said there are no legal guidelines mandating an officer to check immigration status at the time of arrest. But state police have made checking immigration status a routine practice - and are in fact "encouraged" to so - if the individual lacks legal identification, said Jack Lewis, spokesman for the state police.

Milgram and U.S. Attorney Chris Christie acknowledged that the new policy would bring up the issue of housing more prisoners, as it has elsewhere. Christie noted there is no federal detention facility for illegal immigrants in New Jersey, so they will have to be housed in local jails on a contractual basis.

New rules
Under the new rules in New Jersey, which take pains to acknowledge that immigration policy and enforcement is a federal prerogative, such inquiries can only be made by local law enforcement after an arrest. Inquiries cannot be made by local officers pursuing a local investigation of day laborers in their town, for example, Milgram said.

"Because public safety suffers if individuals believe they cannot cooperate" safely with police, said Milgram, the rules also specify that officers may not inquire about the immigration status of any victim, witness, potential witness, or any person requesting or receiving police assistance.

"Put bluntly, while cops are on the street I want them acting as local, county or state cops," she said, adding that the system will require confirming paperwork that will be monitored monthly in an effort to prevent abuses and improper use of racial profiling in a state that has had problems with that issue.

"If we find anyone abusing this authority," said Christie, supporting Milgram and standing beside her, "those police officers will pay very dearly. There is no place in law enforcement for demagoguery that treats people in a way that violates human rights."

Corzine's view
At an unrelated event in Camden, Gov. Corzine yesterday said he was "in complete concurrence with the attorney general's proposals."

Corzine said there needs to be a recognition that police officials, first and foremost, "ought to be working on protecting the public" and enforcing criminal statutes. But he suggested that law-enforcement officers nonetheless have a role in connecting violent offenders with the immigration system.

"If they are undocumented," Corzine said, "then they should be detained."

Commenting after Milgram's announcement, Shai Goldstein, executive director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network, an advocacy group, said the new policies sound well-intentioned, but proof of whether they can be administered fairly remains to be seen.

Also yesterday, New Jersey State Sen. Shirley K. Turner proposed legislation that would require undocumented immigrants to post full cash bail - not just a percentage bond - if they are charged with crimes of violence.

In a statement, Turner said the legislation was prompted by the murders of Dashon Harvey, 20, Terrance Aerial, 18, and Iofemi Hightower, 20, the three Newark college students, who were lined up in a schoolyard, ordered to kneel, and each shot in the head. A fourth student, Aerial's sister Natasha, 19, was seriously wounded but survived.

"A suspected ringleader in these murders . . . is an illegal Peruvian immigrant who was walking the streets after posting just 10 percent of his already-reduced $150,000 bail for charges of robbery and repeated sex crimes against a child," Turner said. "That's an outrage."

Suspect Jose Carranza, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from Peru, had been arrested twice previously on aggravated assault, weapons, and child sexual assault charges. Local authorities said they never checked his immigration status. He was free pending trial at the time of the killings.

Milgram was asked at yesterday's news conference whether the new rules might have prevented the Newark murders.

"I can't Monday-morning-quarterback" the entire case, she said, but she pointed out that the ICE would have been notified after the bar fight in which Carranza was first charged with assault - and that could have kept him locked up on a federal detainer.

Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com

Inquirer staff writers Maria Panaritis and Sarina Rosenberg contributed to this article.


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