Immigration suspects growing part of jail population
Originally published October 07, 2008


By Nicholas C. Stern
News-Post Staff




Members of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office are sworn in during a graduation ceremony for the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Academy.

Coming Tomorrow:
The county’s Human Relations Commission plans to bring together law enforcement officials, immigrant advocates and other interested parties for a forum on the 287g program and its effect on the community.



Nearly 9 percent of the people processed at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center in the past six months were suspected of being illegal immigrants.
That late September figure was provided by the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, the only law enforcement agency in Maryland to have entered into a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as a 287g.

The 287g program allows trained deputies and correctional officers to enforce federal immigration laws. The sheriff's office joined the program at the end of February.

About 90 percent of those transferred to ICE custody are eventually deported, according to Sheriff Chuck Jenkins. ICE assumes responsibility for immigration detainees after they have been released from police custody for any crimes they may have committed, he said.

Since 2007, the sheriff's office has also participated in a program where the detention center houses ICE detainees in exchange for money. On average, 31.5 percent of the center's population is suspected illegal immigrants, Jenkins said.

The detention center has roughly 500 beds and is about full. Jenkins said he would not accommodate ICE requests that would lead to overcrowding.

Fees paid for all ICE detainees since 2007 total roughly $1.2 million, Jenkins said.


The detainees

As of Sept. 26, 178 suspected illegal immigrants had been arrested or detained under the 287g program; more than 96 percent were of Latino descent.

According to police reports, 37 percent are from El Salvador; 32 percent from Mexico; 15 percent from Guatemala and 10 percent from Honduras. The remaining 6 percent are individuals from Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru, Trinidad, Costa Rica, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Ghana and Uzbekistan.

A similar snapshot provided June 18 by the sheriff's office showed 49 people had been detained, all of Latino descent.

Of those 49, almost two-thirds were arrested for traffic violations, mostly related to driving without a valid license, according to court documents. Four were arrested for prostitution, one for multiple assault charges and two for driving while impaired by alcohol.

Two were described as having been convicted of an aggravated felony, and one had allegedly re-entered the country after having been deported.

Some detainees have extensive police records, Jenkins said, and are responsible for drug trafficking and gang-related crimes. Four members of the gang MS-13 have been arrested this year in Frederick County.

Jenkins could not provide further details about how many suspected illegal immigrants in detention had violent criminal histories related to drugs or gangs.

The average age of the detainees was 28. They were predominately male and described themselves in court documents as working in construction, landscaping, fast food and other service jobs.

Jenkins has said the sheriff's office does not profile the people it arrests by ethnicity or race, and has yet to receive a complaint from a detainee.

Despite criticism from civil rights leaders and immigrant advocates, Jenkins said residents, as well as other sheriffs in the state who want to begin a 287g program, have expressed their support.

Jenkins believes the program is at the forefront of a bottom-up effort to influence federal officials to change immigration policy. Illegal immigrants are a massive drain on government resources and the faltering economy, he said.

"At least we've been doing something at some level."


Arresting agencies

The Frederick Police Department has made the most arrests of suspected illegal immigrants, with 51 percent of the 178.

The sheriff's office made 32 percent and the Maryland State Police, 9 percent. The remaining 8 percent were remanded by the courts and the detention center, or arrested by the Brunswick and Thurmont police departments.

According to the June 18 snapshot, most of the arrests were in downtown Frederick or the Golden Mile stretch of U.S. 40.

Frederick Police Department Chief Kim Dine said he has focused law enforcement efforts on the behaviors of those who break the law.

"We obviously engage in aggressive traffic enforcement because anybody in policing knows that that is also an effective way of dealing with crime," he said.

He stressed that building trust with community members, neighborhood advisory councils and minority leaders is important to what he described as enlightened, effective policing.

Dine said checking the immigration status of those arrested and jailed is logical; he hopes the federal government will develop a more streamlined and effective policy.

"Clearly ICE and the (Immigration and Naturalization Service) were designed to deal with this," he said. "I guess the jury's out on how that worked over the last, at least in my career, 33 years."

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