Thread: Illegal aliens jailed, freed

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Illegal aliens jailed, freed
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
JOE SNAPPER
THE SAGINAW NEWS
Three illegal aliens arrested over the weekend in Saginaw are free today because the U.S. government has bigger fish to fry, federal officials said.

Saginaw County authorities could not find a reason to charge them with a crime, forcing the trio's release Sunday, sheriff's officials said.

The men, two Mexican nationals and a Guatemalan, are not legal citizens but apparently had not broken immigration laws severely enough to get U.S. Border Patrol agents' attention.

Plus, federal agents said, the closest Border Patrol station is 100 miles away in Port Huron. It's up to the Border Patrol, under the Department of Homeland Security, whether to seek to prosecute aliens.

"We're not driving hours inland to pick up illegal aliens when we're trying to stop terrorists and weapons of mass destruction," said Rich Nemitz, agent in charge of the Port Huron station.

The Border Patrol takes action "usually only when people in custody are a great threat to the community, and there's nobody (else) going over there to pick them up," Nemitz said.

The trio, riding in a blue two-door 1994 Chevy sedan, were pulling out of a Bay Road Chinese restaurant's parking lot in the wee hours Sunday when they saw a sheriff deputy's flashers.

The deputy found a 31-year-old Guatemalan and Mexicans 20 and 29 inside. None spoke English. He promptly arrested them, said Sheriff's Lt. Wil Yancer.

"It's four o'clock in the morning. You've got a closed business. That's suspicious," Yancer said. "That's good police work."

Sheriff's officials put the three on the phone with Spanish-speaking Border Patrol agents in Port Huron, who pegged each an illegal alien and urged their jailing, Yancer said.

It didn't last long.

"About two hours later, we received a call from the U.S. Border Patrol in Port Huron saying let them go," Yancer said. "Based on that, we had no local charges, so we released them."

Sympathizing, Yancer added that federal agents said their own detention facility was full.

"It's no different from us," Yancer said. "If we're full up, we turn them away."

Nemitz said his office doesn't jail aliens. He said his office almost certainly referred sheriff's deputies to Detroit's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, also in the Department of Homeland Security.

But a customs official -- an agent "McCullough" who refused to give his first name -- said that whether his office jails aliens is up to the Border Patrol.

"He's right," Nemitz said later. "It's our call."

Although Nemitz did not confirm even that his office took a call from sheriff's deputies, he said such a decision not to pick up aliens is "a judgment call."

"You basically have a formula," Nemitz said. "You look at the people in front of you. Then you ask if they're a threat to the community, and how many people do you have on duty?

"We don't want to see these people blend back into the community." v

Joe Snapper is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9715.

"We don't want to see these people blend back into the community."