Thread: IMMIGRATION: Inland deportations under fire

IMMIGRATION: Inland deportations under fire

September 4, 2011
BY DAVID OLSON
STAFF WRITER
dolson@pe.com

Nearly two-thirds of Inland illegal immigrants deported under a controversial federal program said to focus on violent criminals were convicted of only minor offenses or nothing at all.

The Inland statistics are similar to national data on Secure Communities, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement effort to identify illegal immigrants booked into county jails and match them with people in its immigrant database.

Jails in Riverside and San Bernardino counties enlisted in Secure Communities last year and also participate in a separate program, called 287 (g), which trains local law enforcement officials to screen inmates for immigration status. Suspected illegal immigrants are referred to ICE for further questioning.

About 70 agencies nationwide are part of 287 (g), named for the section of a law that created the program. More than 1,500 are part of Secure Communities, which ICE hopes to make nationwide by 2013. Riverside and San Bernardino counties in fiscal 2010 spent nearly $25 million to house suspected illegal immigrants.

The deportation data trouble some immigration-rights advocates, religious groups and elected officials.

"The numbers show it's not the worst of the worst who are most affected," said John Andrews, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, which is part of an Inland coalition that is calling for an end to Secure Communities. "It's not the violent criminals but people who are trying to better their lives in the United States."

In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, about 24 percent of the 3,391 people deported after being identified under Secure Communities had been convicted of the most serious felonies, such as murder, rape, child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and some categories of theft and burglary, according to ICE data. Another 13 percent were convicted of less serious felonies, or of three or more misdemeanors.

But the rest either had been found guilty of minor crimes or had no record of a criminal conviction that ICE could locate. Some had no criminal record but had ignored orders to leave the country or returned after being previously deported.

Asked to comment, ICE representatives referred to written statements. ICE says Secure Communities targets only those arrested for a crime, and that it prioritizes people "who present the most significant threats to public safety."

The agency said the percentage of deportees who are felons tends to be lower in part because many of them are serving prison terms and won't be deported until they are released.

Yet ICE statistics show that even those initially flagged through Secure Communities are unlikely to be major felons. In the Inland area, fewer than 16 percent of illegal immigrants were in jail for a major felony when they were fingerprinted for Secure Communities, according to the statistics.

A Flashpoint

Some anti-illegal-immigration activists say it's irrelevant whether the person committed a minor crime or was convicted of anything. Raymond Herrera, president of Claremont-based We the People, California's Crusaders, said the government should deport anyone found to be in the country illegally, and Secure Communities is one way to easily identify those people.

Chief Deputy Steve Thetford, of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, said the program prevents dangerous criminals from returning to Inland communities. In addition, some people convicted of misdemeanors have also committed more serious crimes, he said.

But immigrant-rights advocates say the program ensnares people who pose no threat to society, instead of focusing on violent criminals.

In January 2010, Leticia Hernandez was a repeated victim of domestic violence and an undocumented immigrant whose request for a special visa for crime victims was being reviewed by federal immigration authorities.

On Jan. 3, 2010, Hernandez said, her then-boyfriend beat her and, when San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies arrived, the man tried to deflect blame from himself by accusing Hernandez of being the aggressor.

Police said they sometimes take both a perpetrator and victim of domestic violence to jail before sorting out who is the real victim.

After Hernandez acknowledged she didn't have a Social Security number, ICE tried to deport the Rancho Cucamonga woman, despite her insistence that her visa application was being processed by an ICE sister agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Hernandez eventually won her case.

Pressure to end the jail-based programs has increased in recent weeks. Secure Communities has become the primary flashpoint because it is far more extensive than 287 (g). Immigration-rights advocates' demands to end it have not subsided, despite ICE promises to make changes.

Seven illegal-immigrant college students were arrested in July during a San Bernardino protest against San Bernardino County's participation in the programs. Three governors this year tried to withdraw their states from Secure Communities, only to be told by ICE that participation is mandatory. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus in May called for an immediate freeze of Secure Communities because of "the astonishing rate of non-criminal deportations."

Risk Of Profiling

Emilio Amaya is executive director of the San Bernardino Community Service Center, an immigrant-assistance agency that helped Hernandez obtain her visa in April 2010. He said he has no problem with ICE identifying and deporting violent criminals. But he said the programs can lead to racial and ethnic profiling.

Amaya pointed to the case of Cristian Garcia, who was stopped Jan. 5 by San Bernardino police while riding a bicycle without a front light. Amaya believes Garcia was stopped because, as a young Latino male, he was profiled as a possible criminal and undocumented immigrant.

Garcia, 18, said he was taken to jail when he couldn't produce an identification card.

After acknowledging in jail that he was born in Mexico, came to the United States at age 7 and did not have immigration papers, he was taken to an ICE detention center and, after officials realized he was 17, to a juvenile facility for three months.

He is now in deportation proceedings.

Garcia was stopped because his bike did not have a headlight and because the neighborhood has had multiple burglaries, and some suspects were spotted on bicycles, said San Bernardino police spokeswoman Lt. Gwendolyn Waters.

Garcia was later convicted of possession of a switchblade knife, found when he was searched. Garcia said he was carrying the knife for protection.

Inland law enforcement officials said police do not stop people to determine if they're illegal immigrants.

Cases Will be Reviewed

Suzanne Foster, executive director of the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, which serves immigrants in the Inland area and Los Angeles County, said many people commit minor offenses such as riding without a bike light and are never stopped, and if they are, they are not hauled off to jail.

"If I forgot my ID, do you think I'd be arrested and thrown in West Valley Detention Center?" asked Foster, who is white.

Foster and other immigrant-rights advocates say they are waiting to see whether promises to adjust deportation policies lead to real changes. They said they've heard similar promises before.

ICE formed an advisory committee to discuss potential changes to the program and said it already is working to protect crime victims and witnesses and look for potential profiling.

In addition, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last month said the government will review all deportation cases and halt proceedings against people it determines to be "low priority."

Napolitano's statement drew fire from supporters of stricter immigration laws, such as Roy Beck, executive director of Virginia-based Numbers USA.

"That's basically saying we no longer have an immigration law if you're not violent," he said. "That's a back-door amnesty."

Yet Foster said ICE should suspend Secure Communities as the agency reviews possible changes.

"While they're figuring this out, people are being deported and families ripped apart," she said.

"They should stop the program and then figure it out."

http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_ ... 6f447.html

What rights, or what laws give illegal aliens the ability to say under what laws they can or cannot be deported?

Only in America ..