Thread: Mayor announces change in Houston PD immigration policy

http://ktrh.com/pages/houstonnews.html? ... le=1121881

HPD Immigration Debate Not Finished

Houston Mayor Bill White left the door open this week for further debate on a Houston Police Department policy which some say encourages illegal immigrants to come here.
By Brent Fuller and Scott Braddock
Thursday, September 28, 2006
The department's current policy forbids officers from asking about someone's immigration status, unless they've committed at least a Class B misdemeanor. It also prevents officers from inquiring about citizenship if a person has committed no crime.

Both White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt supported that policy. However, White said Wednesday at a City Hall press conference that certain "operational refinements" could still be made. "I think it's fair game for discussion with a committee," said White.

Councilman Adrian Garcia, chairman of council's Public Safety Committee, said Tuesday that he would at least consider taking up the topic. But Garcia also said that it likely wouldn't do much, since there's been quite a bit of discussion already.

"The mayor, just as he has on other items, could have taken that, and as he's done with his micromanagement style, he could have gotten directly involved, and chose not to," said Garcia. "I think the policy has been set."

Generally, council members do not vote to change general orders issued by the city's police chief. However, in recent weeks, members have publicly debated another police department order regarding officers who get into car chases with suspects.

The death of Houston police officer Rodney Johnson last week, allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant, has put the city's policy on dealing with illegals in the spotlight. Hours after Johnson's Wednesday funeral, the issue exploded as Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs publicly asked White to rescind the HPD immigration policy during a council meeting. Several members of council got up and walked out as Sekula-Gibbs talked.

Councilwoman Ada Edwards accused Sekula-Gibbs of “pimping” Johnson's death to help her candidacy for the U.S. House this fall. “She did not have to do it today. He (Johnson) is not even in the ground yet,” Edwards said. Councilman Ron Green said, “I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we use the memory of a person who has met such a tragic end purely for political gain.”

Sekula-Gibbs was visibly startled by the walkout, but she was unapologetic. “The issue is the sanctuary city policy … that’s what’s important to the citizens, and that’s what we have to change,” she said. "I think that maybe they don't want to deal with it."

Throwing more fuel on the fire this week was chief Hurtt. Four days after 32-year-old Juan Leonardo Quintero, a once-deported illegal immigrant, allegedly gunned down Johnson, a defiant Hurtt went on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" to defend his policies.

"If we stop everyone when we're on a traffic stop ... if we ask them their status as far as being a citizen ... ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) do not have the resources to respond and take them off our hands," said Hurtt.

Hurtt made those comments while attending a law enforcement conference in North Carolina. Houston City Councilman Michael Berry called Hurtt's trip a 'junket' and said Hurtt needs "to be in Houston, Texas, not Charlotte, N.C., especially at this time. He needs to be here to show his presence to his fellow officers and to calm our city," said Berry.


http://ktrh.com/pages/houstonnews.html? ... le=1141415

Houston Plans Illegal Immigrant Crackdown At Jails

The City of Houston will soon embark on an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from bonding out of city jails on minor offenses before their citizenship status has been discovered.
By Brent Fuller
Friday, September 29, 2006
Proponents say the plan would not affect the Houston Police Department's much-debated policy which prevents officers from asking about the citizenship status of individuals involved in Class C misdemeanors — offenses that usually result in a ticket.

However, if an officer should decide to arrest an individual and bring them to the city jail, "We will be checking fingerprints of Class C offenders," said City Council Public Safety Committee Chairman Adrian Garcia. "If there's information that comes back in relation to questionable immigration status, we will put a 'hold' on you until Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can investigate."

Garcia, who helped draft the plan, said they're trying to seal "gaps" in the system that can occur between booking at the city jail transfer to the Harris County lock-up.

"Any Class C offense individuals have the opportunity to bond out before they're sent to the county," said Garcia.

Not everyone booked on a minor offense would have to be fingerprinted under the city's proposal. Garcia said only those whose identification is thought to be questionable, or those who have no ID, would get prints taken.

He admitted such a step would likely cost the city a "substantial" amount more per year. It would also make the city jail's prisoner-booking process longer, but would speed up the rate at which Immigration and Customs Enforcement gets involved in the process, if that's necessary.

Federal immigration officials are working on a database of individuals who've been deported from the U.S. Garcia said the city hopes that information can be added to National and Texas Crime Information systems, so city jail officers can identify illegal immigrants more quickly.

E-mail this idiot mayor and tell him what you think about his previous policy. I just told him what I thought. His address is
mayor@cityofhouston.net

Well, this is really "big" of the Mayor. It took an officer with five children to be killed before the Mayor will make sure that illegals are fingerprinted.

Stupidity is rapant in our country.

D.W.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 27209.html

Oct. 1, 2006, 2:52AM
HPD revising its immigration policy
Changes taking effect this week will help feds nab criminals here illegally


By MATT STILES
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Under fire in recent months over its policy toward illegal immigrants, the Houston Police Department is unveiling new procedures today to allow more cooperation with federal agents trying to catch criminals living in the country illegally.

Officers still will not inquire about the immigration status of people they haven't arrested, so the changes are unlikely to quiet critics who have labeled Houston a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants.

But the department is making several key revisions.

An announcement is expected today, less than two weeks after the shooting death of police officer Rodney Johnson caused simmering opposition to the department policy to flare anew. An illegal immigrant who previously had been deported is charged in the slaying.

Among the changes to take effect this week:

•The department will hold people detained or arrested for traffic violations or other minor crimes — Class C misdemeanors — if warrant checks show they are wanted by federal agents for defying an order to leave the country or for returning after being deported in connection with a criminal case. Under existing policy, police generally did not hold such people for federal authorities, even if officers were aware of the federal warrants.
•The department will allow immigration agents unfettered access to the city's two jails, as they have had in the Harris County jail, and officers will start asking all arrestees whether they are citizens.
•Fingerprints of anyone booked into the jails without proper identification will be checked against a national fingerprint database.
That could help officers identify wanted criminals, including people wanted for serious immigration violations, police say.

"There's a pretty solid process now between HPD and the federal authorities to identify and act on people who've been deported from this country because of their criminal behavior," said Executive Assistant Chief Timothy Oettmeier, among a group of police commanders who briefed the Houston Chronicle on the changes.

"We're now in a position to detect and get them back out of here."

Oettmeier and the others acknowledged they can't project how many immigration violators who previously might have been released will be snared under the new policy. Immigration officials say roughly 200,000 such cases are in their database, but only a few such people encounter authorities each year.

Police commanders, who dispute the "sanctuary" title, have been working on the revisions for months with federal prosecutors and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Under the revised procedures, officers still won't attempt to determine the immigration status of people encountered routinely, and won't arrest anyone solely for being in the country illegally — as advocated by supporters of tougher immigration enforcement.


Local versus federal
But police and immigration officials say the immigration status of suspects charged with serious misdemeanors or felonies is routinely determined upon transfer to the county jail.


Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt have said the department doesn't have legal authority in most immigration cases.

They also say the department shouldn't expend its limited manpower on a federal responsibility and that doing so would alienate officers from immigrant communities.

That could make it harder to get immigrants to report crimes or cooperate as witnesses.

"The administration supports giving law enforcement all tools to reduce the risk of crime within their resources," White said.

"Running more checks on the wanted status of people, and more use of the fingerprint database, will tighten up the procedures."


Critic not satisfied
One key department critic, Mary Williams of Protect Our Citizens, a local group trying to change the policy through a voter referendum, charged that the revisions don't go far enough.


She vowed to continue her fight to put a provision in the City Charter permitting police to enforce immigration laws.

"We want officers to have the discretion to ask them the first time," she said, referring to inquiries about citizenship status during routine encounters such as traffic stops.

Williams dismissed the new policies as political posturing.

"When you let the politicians decide, you get baby steps like this thing," she said.

Though the changes likely won't end criticism of the policy, police commanders said the new procedures will make it harder for criminal immigrants to elude detection but also allow the department to maintain its position that officers should have a limited role in immigration matters.


2003 incident resurfaces
The change involving criminal deportees — people forced out of the country because they violated laws here — would prevent incidents like one in October 2003, when officers were forced to release Moises Hernandez Galvan, a 37-year-old illegal immigrant detained after a traffic stop, even though they knew he had returned to the country after deportation.


The incident was not publicized at the time but sparked internal criticism about the department's policy, according to police memos obtained by the Houston Chronicle under the Texas Public Information Act.

"If this suspect had been a deported felon with terrorist ties, then the actions taken in this incident could seriously jeopardize homeland security," Lt. Tom Roman, who is now retired, wrote then-acting Police Chief Joe Breshears.

A reply memo stated that the department would continue its policy of not detaining people arrested on Class C misdemeanors simply because they had immigration warrants.

Under the new policy, police would hold for federal authorities a suspect such as Galvan if it's discovered the suspect is wanted on an immigration warrant.

Bob Rutt, special agent in charge of the Houston office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said his agents will take those suspects from police custody within 12 hours.

"This is very big," he said. "It shows the commitment by HPD to public safety and homeland security."

matt.stiles@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 28732.html
Oct. 1, 2006, 11:17PM
White says officer's death sped HPD policy change


By ALEXIS GRANT and KRISTEN MACK
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

The death of officer Rodney Johnson expedited the Houston Police Department's new policy of asking people arrested in minor crimes for identification and running criminal background checks on those who cannot provide it, but the change was being formulated before he was killed during the arrest of an illegal immigrant, Mayor Bill White said Sunday.

"That did provide an additional impetus to bring this to conclusion, but it was in the works anyway," White said at a news conference Sunday formally announcing the change. "Both Chief (Hurtt) and I, after that death, we asked for an expedited review of everything we could to identify people who are wanted (for criminal activity)."

The city was negotiating the policy change with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials before Johnson was shot to death Sept. 21, White said.

A host of officials from the police department and City Council, as well as several immigrant advocates, supported White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt as they unveiled the procedures, which take effect immediately and are intended to crack down on criminals living in the country illegally.

"(We are) specifically targeting those people that have been convicted of felonies in this country and have been previously deported and re-entered the country," Hurtt said.

Under the policy, Houston police will ask all arrested suspects whether they are citizens, then fingerprint anyone without identification and check for criminal histories in a national database.

If that search shows a person is accused of returning to the country after being deported for a crime or defying an order to leave the country — both of which carry felony charges — police will hold the person for immigration officials.

Those who cannot provide proper identification but have no criminal record will not be turned over to immigration officials.

Under the former policy, police generally did not hold anyone for immigration authorities, even if there were outstanding federal warrants.

Officers still aren't allowed to ask people they do not arrest about their immigration statuses, which means police can't arrest anyone solely for being in the country illegally.

And for that reason, some say the policy doesn't go far enough.

"If the city restricts, in any way, a police officer's ability to identify foreign nationals, it risks the possibility of losing all federal law enforcement grants," U.S. Rep. John Culberson said, citing an amendment passed earlier this year.

That amendment — to a bill not yet signed into law — says federal funding can't be granted to cities and states that prohibit or restrict officials from exchanging information with federal immigration authorities. Local officials have said the police department has no such restrictions.

Whether the changes will prevent another officer's death in the line of duty is an open question.

But under the new system, the illegal immigrant arrested by Johnson would have been caught by a check at the jail, because he had already been deported for a felony.

Johnson was shot four times after he arrested an illegal immigrant on a speeding violation. Police say the man fired through the seat of the police car with a handgun Johnson had not detected when he searched him.

"It will remove a number of violent criminals from streets. You can't know which lives will be saved because of it, but some lives will be saved," Councilman Michael Berry said. "And there will come a day when we ask for more, but, for now, we need to celebrate some progress."

Officials were unable to provide an estimate of how many criminals they expect to identify under the policy but said they do not expect the number to be high enough to burden police or federal agents.

"We do not believe it would overwhelm HPD's resources or ICE's resources," said Bob Rutt, special agent in charge of ICE in Houston.

Nationwide, about 6,400 absconders or previously deported felons were identified in the past fiscal year through the criminal database Houston now uses, Rutt said.

The policy also allows federal immigration officials into the city's two jails as they are allowed in at the Harris County Jail.

But unlike at the county jail, where federal immigration officials are always on site and detain illegal immigrants even after they post bail, the city jail will not have a full-time federal agent on duty, Rutt said.

Instead, federal officials will drop in as needed to transport criminal illegal immigrants discovered through the policy.

"We do not have the staffing to be down there (to) cover both jails," Rutt said.

alexis.grant@chron.com

http://abclocal.go.com/kt


Big changes announced for Houston jail
Goal is to find and arrest previously deported felons
By Christine Dobbyn
(10/01/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) - Big changes are coming to the way some criminals are booked in Houston's jail. Some say they will protect you by keeping repeat offenders behind bars. Part of the goal is to find and arrest all previously deported felons.


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HPD Chief Harold Hurtt was joined by about two dozen community leaders at headquarters Sunday to announce the changes regarding police work and illegal immigrants.

In the past, HPD has always done checks for criminal wants and warrants if someone is arrested and booked on a Class B misdemeanor and higher, which includes crimes such as DUIs and thefts.

But now, the police department will check anyone arrested and booked. This includes Class C misdemeanors, like assault and criminal trespassing. Community leaders say they've been working to improve these policies for some time now, but last week's arrest of Juan Quintero, who was here illegally and has been charged in the fatal shooting of Officer Rodney Johnson, certainly expedited the changes announced Sunday.

LULAC says it supports all of these endeavors, saying it's all about catching criminals. But they also say this will affect more citizens than illegal immigrants.

"Our jail booking process will now include asking all persons being arrested whether they were born in the United States of if they're citizens of the United States," said Chief Hurtt Sunday. "HPD and fellow authorities will work together to detect and arrest all previously deported felons."

"I don't care if you're black, blue, brown, or whatever, if you've committed a crime and you have warrants, they need to take you in. In that sense, it's good," said LULAC District Director Rick Dolvalina. "What I would tell immigrants is pay your tickets, stay out of trouble, carry identification and you'll be OK."

Another change that we will soon see is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will be granted access to all HPD jails. They're already operating in the Harris County jail.
(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)


ABC13 News Team

Christine Dobbyn, Reporter


Changes to way HPD does its booking at the jail is changing.



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