Thread: Latinos get jail jitters Small charge may mean deportation

Small charge may mean deportation
Latinos get jail jitters
Pat Schneider
January 28, 2008

An apparent increase in the number of undocumented immigrants being picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from the Dane County Jail has the local Latino and judicial communities nervous, but jail officials say the impact of stepped-up federal enforcement is not yet clear.

"It's devastating," said Peter Munoz, executive director of Centro Hispano, who is worried about the families of undocumented immigrants who may be deported after convictions on relatively minor offenses.

Circuit Judge Stuart Schwartz is concerned that if word goes out in immigrant communities that going to jail means being deported, "people will stop coming to court." The need to issue warrants for, arrest and hold people in the jail for minor offenses threatens to clog the court system and overtax an already overcrowded jail, said Schwartz, who oversees the Criminal Defense Project.

Anthony Delyea, a Spanish-speaking private attorney who is hired by the court system under the Criminal Defense Project to represent indigent defendants, said that he can no longer advise his clients who are not in the country legally to plead guilty in cases he once would have because now they are facing deportation.

ICE notified jails across the country last spring that it had taken over responsibility for foreign-born inmates being held on criminal charges and that additional resources were being allotted to detaining and removing them.

Sheriff Dave Mahoney said there have been spotty increases in the number of inmates on which ICE has placed immigration holds in the past year, but said there is no clear pattern of increases. While no law requires local jails to notify ICE that they are holding undocumented immigrants on criminal charges, Mahoney maintains the jail for a decade has notified federal authorities of all non-citizens it is holding to meet federal legal requirements that it notify the consulates of some nations that a citizen is in custody. Mexico has asked as a courtesy that notification be made on its residents, Mahoney said.

In 2007, the jail gave federal authorities notice it was holding 286 foreign inmates, and ICE placed immigration holds on 61 of them, with 38 of the holds placed in the last three months of the year. Jail officials cannot say, however, how many of the 61 inmates were picked up by ICE because the jail does not track which agency recaptures an inmate.

ICE is not saying how many inmates it picked up from the Dane County Jail. "We don't keep statistics by jail," said ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro. But in the 2006-2007 fiscal year, ICE initiated deportation proceedings nationwide on 164,000 "criminal aliens." In Wisconsin, where ICE personnel has been increased 30 percent over the past two years, 500 such proceedings were initiated, compared to 200 to 300 in the prior fiscal year.

Montenegro said ICE focuses on immigrants convicted of felonies, violent crimes or with numerous convictions, but said she could give to specific list of criminal violations that would lead to ICE to seek to detain a jail inmate.

Munoz said his agency is attempting to help a half-dozen local immigrants who have detention holds on them. "One family has four kids and the father, who was the provider, is in the process of being deported," he said. Munoz said he understood the charge was "alcohol-related."

Many immigrants don't understand the U.S. justice system, he said. Traffic violations, for example, are pretty much ignored in Mexico and immigrants here may not understand the consequences, Munoz said.

Schwartz said that attorneys with the state Public Defenders Office have told him they are concerned about clients being deported for driving after license revocation or similar offenses. Undocumented immigrants can no longer get a Wisconsin drivers license, so when it expires, they either quit driving or drive without a license.

If defense attorneys find they have to try cases without merit rather than expose them to deportation, it will cost the system to pay jurors and clog court calendars, he said.

Schwartz said concerns reach beyond the justice system to social impacts. "Will somebody be reluctant to call police on a domestic battery?" he asked.

Delyea said in an interview that because he is paid a flat rate for each case he handles for the court, he can't afford to handle cases that would have been a routine guilty plea in the past, but for which now he can't advise his clients to plead.

In a letter notifying Schwartz he will likely resign from the Criminal Defense Project, Delyea wrote: "I can think of no possible incentive to enter a plea that will result in deportation, because a one in a million chance of winning at a trial you do not have to pay for is much better than entering a plea where your chances of avoiding deportation are zero."

Beyond the legal ramifications are the human costs, Delyea said in an interview. "Some of these people own houses, they've lived here 20 years. People who have done relatively minor things suffer unbelievably harsh consequences."


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Many immigrants don't understand the U.S. justice system

Ignorance of the law is no excuse

Small charge may mean deportation

There’s them darn words again !!

If defense attorneys find they have to try cases without merit rather than expose them to deportation, it will cost the system to pay jurors and clog court calendars, he said.

Well, well finally somebody has woke up that its not the immigration attorneys job to keep criminals aliens from being deported. It is that Immigration lawyers and the judge’s job to help with the Immigration legal processes.

I am starting to read more and more articles that interview these so called immigration experts that answers Americans criminal Immigrations problems all by their self. Maybe this thing is coming to a head.

People who have done relatively minor things suffer unbelievably harsh consequences."

No kidding?

"Many immigrants don't understand the U.S. justice system, he said. Traffic violations, for example, are pretty much ignored in Mexico and immigrants here may not understand the consequences, Munoz said. "

All the more reason why the illegal invaders need to be deported.

Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. Once again, we have a pro-illegal activist who tries to make excuses for the actions of these law breakers.

Originally Posted by NoBueno

"Many immigrants don't understand the U.S. justice system, he said. Traffic violations, for example, are pretty much ignored in Mexico and immigrants here may not understand the consequences, Munoz said. "

All the more reason why the illegal invaders need to be deported.

Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. Once again, we have a pro-illegal activist who tries to make excuses for the actions of these law breakers.

These people are IGNORAMUSES!! Best word to describe them. Their liberal supporters need to stop making excuses for them and encouraging them to break the law. Aren't the OBL'ers civilly liable for damages?

Beyond the legal ramifications are the human costs, Delyea said in an interview. "Some of these people own houses, they've lived here 20 years. People who have done relatively minor things suffer unbelievably harsh consequences

lived here 20 years and owned houses?
exactly the point. that 1986 amnesty that Kennedy bragged about stopping illegals brought in untold millions.

today while in WAMU - a bank that is adjoined to fred meyer, a young
fat burly hispanic ( illegallalien mexican) in splattered paint clothes shoved his way through the line of people waiting to talk to the bank teller
to get to fred meyer,
he had a hostile look on his face.it was rude of him and he knew it.
the small ways they let us know what they reallythink.
why is being deported to a country with a nice climate considered harsh consequences?

Munoz said his agency is attempting to help a half-dozen local immigrants who have detention holds on them. "One family has four kids and the father, who was the provider, is in the process of being deported," he said. Munoz said he understood the charge was "alcohol-related."





And how much money was this "provider" spending on his booze instead of spending it to provide for his kids?

In fact, how many of those kids are anchor babies meaning that the real "provider" for them is the US taxpayer?

Many immigrants don't understand the U.S. justice system, he said. Traffic violations, for example, are pretty much ignored in Mexico and immigrants here may not understand the consequences, Munoz said.

A valid reason illegal immigrants should not be permitted driver's licenses.


"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Hey.....those "small offenses" effect citizens lives...sometimes for their entire lives. I don't see our judicial system worrying if the crime was really bad enough to warrent all the other ways a citizens life is damaged. Not to mention these people have been given a blind eye to a ton of other "small offenses" the rest of us are still subject to.

Many immigrants don't understand the U.S. justice system, he said. Traffic violations, for example, are pretty much ignored in Mexico and immigrants here may not understand the consequences, Munoz said.

Being ignorant of the law is no excuse!! But, what would expect from someone who broke the law the second they crossed the border illegally!!!