http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/local/ci_4255251

INS working locally to nab illegal lawbreakers

By BEN BROWN The Daily Journal
Ukiah Daily Journal

Officers from Immigration Customs Enforcement, the enforcement branch of Immigration and Naturalization Services, have been working with Ukiah city and Mendocino County law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants who have been committing crimes in the county.

"They deal with people who are known and documented gang members," said Ukiah Police Capt. Trent Taylor.

Taylor said a group of immigration officers come to the county every few months to help UPD officers deal with illegal immigrants who commit crimes, specifically gang-crime.

Taylor said UPD officers do not go out looking for illegal immigrants because it is outside their jurisdiction and local police to not have the authority to question a person's immigration status.

Immigration officers can. They also have the authority to start the process by which illegal immigrants are deported back to their home countries. Taylor said immigration officers focus on illegal immigrants who are on parole for other crimes.

However, deporting suspects back to their home countries is not always successful. Taylor said it is not uncommon for illegal immigrants to reenter the United States after being deported and that those who are involved in gang activity often return to the city they were arrested in.

"That happens pretty frequently," Taylor said.

While many of those deported are gang members, Taylor said the majority of gang members in Mendocino County are not illegal immigrants.

Immigration officers also work with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office to arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Sheriff's Capt. Kurt Smallcomb said the focus is not only on those illegal immigrants who are in gangs, but also those that work in the county's numerous illegal marijuana gardens.

Smallcomb said the sheriff's office has been arresting more and more illegal immigrants over the last five years for working in illegal marijuana gardens

"I think the majority of these large marijuana grows are Mexican cartels," Smallcomb said.

These cartels may be the reason sheriff's deputies have been seeing an increasing number of illegal immigrants growing and harvesting marijuana in the county, Smallcomb said.

Illegal immigrants are useful as labor because they are easy to get into California, they don't have to be paid much, and they are unlikely to steal from the garden or flee because the gardens are deep in the forest and the workers probably don't know where they are or where they could flee to, Smallcomb said.

Earlier this month, sheriff's deputies working with immigration officers arrested three illegal immigrants at a marijuana garden in the Round Valley area.

Deputies also arrested a Mexican national in June in connection with a marijuana garden found near the bodies of Robert Cory Want, 28, and Ivan Tillotson, 28, both of Covelo.

Smallcomb said immigration officers worked with the Sheriff's department in the investigation of that garden.

No one has been arrested in connection with those deaths.

Ben Brown can be reached at udjbb@pacific.net