Thread: Immigration Task Force Not Yet Ready, Officials Say

Immigration Task Force Not Yet Ready, Officials Say

Officials in northwest Arkansas say five weeks of training in Boston with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency wasn't enough to qualify local 19 officers to start helping federal authorities enforce immigration laws.

The officers who went to Boston came from the Rogers and Springdale police departments and the Benton and Washington county sheriff's offices.

Rogers Police Chief Steve Helms said the training isn't complete because the officers ran out of time. But even after they get more hands-on training, their duties as city officers and county deputies apparently won't change much.

Helms said the program involving local officers in immigration matters involves nothing different from what his department does now—except that officers will have the ability to obtain information from a federal database.

Lack of training isn't the only thing holding up operations of what has been dubbed the Northwest Arkansas Illegal Immigration Criminal Apprehension Task Force. The local agencies haven't yet received from ICE the memorandums of agreement on the program that are needed before it can begin operating. The memorandums define the responsibilities of each agency involved in the task force.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=53434

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