Thread: Immigration officials: laws limiting detainers risk officers

By CLAUDIA TORRENS Associated Press
03/09/2015 10:11 PM


In this March 2, 2015 photo, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer "tacs up" in the garage of a New York federal building, as he prepares for series of early-morning arrests. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement say an increasing number of cities and counties across the United States are limiting cooperation with the agency and putting its officers in dangerous situations as they track down foreign-born criminals. Instead, more of its force is out on the streets, eating up resources and conducting investigations because cities like New York and states like California have passed legislation that limits many of the detention requests issued by immigration authorities. Richard Drew AP Photo

NEW YORK - Diminished local cooperation is putting federal immigration officers in dangerous situations as they track down foreign-born criminals, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say.

They say that more of their officers are out on the streets, eating up resources, because cities and states have passed legislation that limits many of the detention requests issued by immigration authorities.

For years, ICE issued the detainers to local and state law enforcement agencies, asking them to hold immigrants for up to 48 hours after they were scheduled for release from jail. Most detainees were then either taken into federal custody to face an immigration judge or be deported.

But more than 300 counties and cities, plus California, Connecticut, Illinois, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, have chosen to release immigrants, claiming too many people who have committed low-level offenses or no crime at all were being deported and unnecessarily separated from their families. Courts have said that honoring detainers without probable cause could result in a civil rights offense.

ICE insists that its priorities have changed and it is only focused on foreign-born criminals who are a threat to society. It deported nearly 316,000 people in fiscal year 2014.

In the first eight months of 2014, immigration officers filed roughly 105,000 requests for local enforcement agencies to hold immigrants but local agencies declined 8,800 of the requests, according to data provided by immigration authorities.

Officers now face more danger because they can't just pick up foreign-born criminals in a safe environment like Rikers Island, said Christopher Shanahan, field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York.

"We are in a situation in which we have to provide more men, more workers, more manpower in the streets, where it is more dangerous to take custody of somebody," said Shanahan. "On the street, when you go into a house, a place of employment, when you are arresting somebody, you don't know if they have weapons, you don't know the surroundings."

Last week, an Associated Press reporter and photographer accompanied officers as they conducted a series of early-morning arrests in the Bronx and Manhattan, part of a nationally-coordinated operation that netted 2,059 people.

A half-dozen ICE officers met at 5:30 a.m. in the parking lot of a Bronx coffee shop, put on black bulletproof vests and reviewed the three people they would try to arrest that morning. After driving quickly to each location in unmarked cars with sirens blaring, they made two arrests: a Mexican man and a Dominican man accused of illegally re-entering into the country, which is considered a high priority for ICE.

The Mexican man had been arrested 10 times by local police for driving without a license and then deported. The man, who was not identified per the Department of Homeland Security's privacy policy, re-entered the U.S. illegally and then was accused of menacing a neighbor with a machete. ICE said it had issued a detainer for the man that was not honored by the city.

Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the legislation that limited cooperation with ICE in November. The new law bars cooperation with detainers unless there's a federal warrant and the person is on the terrorist watch list or committed a serious crime in the past five years.

From October 2013 through September 2014, the New York City Police Department received 2,635 immigration detainers. Of those, it held 196 individuals. The city says no ICE detainers have been honored this year.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who proposed the limitations, said ICE officials for years "cast a dragnet at Rikers Island" that resulted in unnecessary deportations.

"In addition to being unfair, ICE's policies were an offense to the rule of law and yet another symptom of our broken immigration system," Mark-Viverito said in a statement.

In California, only immigrants illegally in the United States who have been convicted of a serious offense are eligible for the 48-hour hold.

David Marin, deputy field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations in Los Angeles, said that of the seven counties that form the Los Angeles area of operation only two honor detainers that meet those standards.

More than one-fourth of the people arrested by ICE in the Los Angeles area last week had recently been released onto the street by local authorities despite ICE detainer requests. Fifty-nine of the 218 individuals detained by ICE during the enforcement action had been the subject of immigration detainers, said ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice.

The issue is not black-and-white, says Muzaffar Chishti, New York director of the Migration Policy Institute.

"My feeling is that, at some level, both (sides) are right", said Chishti. "This is a classic case of where you stand on issues depends on where you sit. The concerns and the priorities of the city and police are very different from the concerns and priorities of the federal government."

http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-wo...e13171361.html

This just re-emphasizes the ineffectiveness of DHS. The US government challenged the state immigration laws that would have brought this disaster to an end, so now they want to whine about how dangerous it is to go arrest a Machete Mexican in New York City for re-entering. There are 20 million of these people in the United States. They all hate America, they despise Americans, they're liars, cheats, sneaks, crooks, drug-runners, rapists, thieves, murderers, and oh yes, oh yes, they are all armed with something. These people are the worst kind of criminal, they're the Imposters Extraordinaire. They are the dregs of the countries they came from who couldn't make it in their own country, Mexico for example, which has a lower unemployment rate than the United States, Mexico, where most people want to go on vacations and Spring Breaks, because it's such a beautiful country. In December of 2014, Mexico's unemployment rate was 3.76%.

Mexico Unemployment Rate 1994-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast

Unemployment Rate in Mexico increased to 4.51 percent in January of 2015 from 3.76 percent in December of 2014. Unemployment Rate in Mexico averaged 3.80 percent from 1994 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 5.93 percent in May of 2009 and a record low of 2.22 percent in March of 1997. Unemployment Rate in Mexico is reported by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI).

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexi...mployment-rate

Americans have been fed a bunch of poop about the poor conditions in Mexico. They have lots of jobs and lots of activity, and Mexico has a lot of money and a lot of rich Mexicans. They also have too many kids, but that's their right if that's how they want to live. And their wages may be low, but again that's their own fault, all they have to do is grow spines, form unions and demand better pay. That's the only reason Americans have better pay. No one hands it out here without worker demands and pressure to do so. And we know Mexicans aren't shy. They know how to march and protest and run their mouths, which is why all illegal aliens from Mexico and every other country on the planet need to go home and do whatever they want and need to do to make themselves a better life there.

I have no sympathy for these people. None whatsoever. I've read so many of these fake illegal alien sob stories planted by these 501 C 3 tax frauds, I want to throw up, and wonder where are the American sob stories? Americans don't whine, so there are no sob stories. We don't wallow in self-pity, we don't exploit our own situations whatever they may be as justification for breaking the laws of another country. We have our own people, families and neighbors to concern ourselves with, but our poor won't whine. They never did. All they demanded were jobs and a fair wage for the work when they could find it. I've seen poverty, American poverty, first-hand, I've been in their homes, and it truly changes your life forever to see this. These situations were so bleak, there were no easy answers, in fact there were no answers. But did they whine? No, they did not whine.

So get these foreign whiners out of here. We can't sustain them, and they can't sustain themselves without stealing a job, an education or a life from an American, so get them out of here and keep them out.

Period.

The issue is not black-and-white, says Muzaffar Chishti, New York director of the Migration Policy Institute.

"My feeling is that, at some level, both (sides) are right", said Chishti. "This is a classic case of where you stand on issues depends on where you sit. The concerns and the priorities of the city and police are very different from the concerns and priorities of the federal government."

Really? Well, I guess the next time you have some towers blown to bits by some illegal aliens, we'll just tell you, sorry, but the priorities of the federal government are very different than the priorities of New York City and it's police department.

You know, for New York City of all the damn places to be supporting illegal aliens just shows how completely upside down inside out that place has become. All the support this nation gave your city and this is how you thank the American People? Really? Are you kidding me?! It this is a joke, Muzaffar, Director of the Office of Migration Policy? What in the hell is that? Cities have Offices of "Migration Policy"? Unbelievable.

Well, it is partially a result of deciding that local police could not in routine stops/investigations were stopped from inquiring about immigration/legal status. Now they want cooperation of locals. It is caused by not considering all consequences possibly caused by laws, edicts, court orders. etc. before issuing same. It is identified as stupidity. Well, I would like to have my cake and eat it, too.

Originally Posted by kevinssdad

Well, it is partially a result of deciding that local police could not in routine stops/investigations were stopped from inquiring about immigration/legal status. Now they want cooperation of locals. It is caused by not considering all consequences possibly caused by laws, edicts, court orders. etc. before issuing same. It is identified as stupidity. Well, I would like to have my cake and eat it, too.

I really don't understand police departments who refuse to cooperate with federal authorities to stop illegal immigration, other than they're on the take with the drug cartels. The drug business is huge, and police departments get to keep quite a bit of their confiscations, so if the area becomes unfriendly to drug cartels, the cartels feel they've lost their local protection and either have to move out to friendlier areas or pay more to the police to buy more protection. I mean there's clear reason why the drug cartels are as strong as ever and the drug trade grows consistently every year, even though police arrest 1.5 million Americans or more a year on drug charges. 1.5 million new arrests every year for drug charges, every 10 years, that's 15 million Americans with a drug arrest/conviction on their record. Yet, the drug trade is run by drug cartels and illegal aliens. Where are the arrests? 10 here, 19 there. Then they're released after 2 or 3 years and they're back on the street or deported and back in the country, with the drug trade totally unaffected by it. Illegal aliens don't use drugs, that's because they work for the cartels, and they're not allowed to use, because the cartels don't want users using up their products, so it's a big no-no. That's why illegal aliens are usually arrested for alcohol related matters, not drug matters, whereas American are arrested for both. That's why Border Patrol has been told to release illegal aliens arrested for DUI's and other alcohol related matters and "send them on their way", because they either could be or are workers for the cartels.

Take Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, according to wiki, considered the most vulnerable Senate incumbent in the 2014 elections, yet he didn't have a primary opponent last election because he made a deal to create this big Graham Money Machine for the GOP in South Carolina. Why would Lindsey Graham have the power to raise a bunch of money to create a Money Machine for the GOP in South Carolina when he was the most vulnerable incumbent to a primary challenger?

2014
Main article: United States Senate election in South Carolina, 2014

Of all the Republican Senators up for re-election in the 2014 cycle, Graham was considered one of the most vulnerable to a primary challenge, largely due to his low approval ratings and reputation for working with and compromising with Democrats.^[36][37] He expected a primary challenge from conservative activists, including the Tea Party movement,^[38] and Chris Chocola, President of the Club for Growth, indicated that his organization would support a primary challenge if an acceptable standard-bearer emerged.[39]

However, a serious challenger to Graham failed to emerge and he was widely viewed as likely to win,^[5][12][36] which has been ascribed to his "deft maneuvering" and "aggressive" response to the challenge. He befriended potential opponents from the state's congressional delegation and helped them with fundraising and securing their preferred committee assignments; he assembled a "daunting multimillion-dollar political operation" dubbed the "Graham machine" that built six regional offices across the state and enlisted the support of thousands of paid staffers and volunteers, including over 5,000 precinct captains; he assembled a "staggering" campaign warchest and "blanketed" the state with positive ads; he focused on constituent services and local issues; and he refused to "pander" to the Tea Party supporters, instead confronting them head-on, arguing that the Republican party needs to be more inclusive.^{[9][10][11][12][40]}

In the run-up to the Republican primary, Graham's approval rating improved. According to a Winthrop poll from February 2013, he held a 59% positive rating among Republican likely voters.^[41] In the primary, held on June 10, 2014, Graham won with 178,833 votes (56.42%). His nearest challenger, State Senator Lee Bright, received 48,904 votes (15.53%). In the general election, he defeated Democratic State Senator Brad Hutto and Independent Thomas Ravenel, a former Republican State Treasurer.^[42]

"assembled a daunting multi-million political operation" and a "staggering campaign warchest" ......

From whom? From where?

and he refused to "pander" to the Tea Party supporters, instead confronting them head-on, arguing that the Republican party needs to be more inclusive.^{[9][10][11][12][40]}

Inclusive of whom? Not gays, not women, not blacks. Who is he inclusive of?

It all seems pretty obvious to me, from whom, from where, for whom.

Whatever the answer, it certainly wasn't Americans.