DA urges crackdown on unauthorized immigrants who break law


Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli on Thursday, July 14, 2016 held a news conference
discussing the county's detainment of those in the country without authorization who commit state crimes.
(Pamela Sroka-Holzmann | For Lehighvalleylive) ( )


By Pamela Sroka-Holzmann on July 14, 2016 at 3:10 PM, updated July 14, 2016 at 9:33 PM

Northampton County District John Morganelli is calling for unauthorized immigrants to be arrested and high bails to be set in Northampton County when they break the law.

The district attorney held a new conference Thursday afternoon laying out his continued stance on the deportation of accused criminals.

Morganelli stated the most violent criminals at large today across the U.S. are unauthorized immigrants. He estimated the U.S. population of unauthorized immigrants to be between 9 to 13 million people.

"Just about every day, municipal and state police all over the country come in contact with illegal aliens who are utilizing fraudulent documents, false names and other people's identities," Morganelli said.

"Accurate identification of these individuals is often impossible and quite frankly, many of the illegal aliens committing crimes here in the United States have criminal records from their country of origin."

Morganelli in 2014 requested all county law enforcement continue to recognize and honor detainers lodged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by identifying the individuals and placing them under arrest.

The request came following a Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled federal regulations dealing with the issuance of detainers sent to state and local law enforcement agencies were not mandatory.

"Since that ruling, some local law enforcement agencies and county prisons got cold feet with respect to compliance ... Under threats of litigation from the ACLU and others, some law enforcement became chilled in its duty and obligation to enforce the law," Morganelli said.

"In Northampton County, that was not the case."

Detaining unauthorized immigrants

Under Morganelli's direction, he said law enforcement worked with federal authorities and local police continued to be "well aware" of his stance on detaining unauthorized immigrants.

"When they (unauthorized immigrants) commit state crimes, they need to be arrested," Morganelli said. "When arrested, they should be brought to Northampton County Prison with high bail set."

Then, immigration officials may decide whether detainers should be issued. Morganelli said since the court decision, Northampton County Prison continued to honor ICE detainers.

"Essentially, I wanted to make sure Northampton County didn't become a safe haven for foreign criminals," he said. "This is not immigration enforcement. This is making sure that Northampton County does not become a magnet for foreign criminals based on their belief that local law enforcement and the Northampton County Prison would be powerless to turn them over to immigration officials."

The county has been named a recipient of State Criminal Alien Assistance Programming grant funding to further the efforts.




No 'Sanctuary County'

The continued effort by Northampton County Prison and Northampton County law enforcement has been essential to assure the county does not become a "sanctuary county," Morganelli said.

A "sanctuary county," described by Morganelli, is a county or city that prohibits the police from reporting unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes and offering them a safe haven.

Morganelli said the "sanctuary county" policy has led to additional crime. He cited such examples as an authorized immigrant who became a 16-year-old apprentice sniper terrifying the Washington D.C. area; an unauthorized immigrant kidnapping a child in California in 2003; and a rape of a woman by an unauthorized immigrant in New York City in 2002.

And more recently, a 29-year-od unauthorized immigrant who had been deported six times nearly killed an Arizona family in a car crash on July 7, 2015, he said.

The crimes could have been avoided without those areas having sanctuary policies in place, Morganelli said.

"These incidents are only a handful of a long list of Americans who have been killed by illegal criminal aliens often after having been deported more than once and often residing in 'sanctuary cities,'" he said.

A bill crafted by U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa, to end sanctuary counties recently failed in the Senate, but Morganelli said the Department of Justice is taking a step toward it anyway.

The department, he said, now will more strictly enforce existing requirements for grant recipients to cooperate with immigration authorities.

DA urges crackdown on unauthorized immigrants who break law ...