More seek to enforce citizenship laws in jails
Today: Illegal immigrants
By Dave Montgomery
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

http://www.kentucky.com/216/story/172314.html


WASHINGTON --Sheriff Jim Pendergraph first noticed the changes in his jail population early in the decade as illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries poured into Charlotte and elsewhere in Mecklenburg County, N.C., to find jobs in the state's robust economy.

In Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones became so frustrated with the swelling population of undocumented suspects in his jail a couple of years ago that he symbolically billed the federal government for his incarceration costs and posted a big yellow sign near the jail reading: "Illegal aliens here."

Pendergraph and Jones are part of a growing national debate over how to handle undocumented criminals, a debate that's flared anew with the arrest of an illegal immigrant in the execution-style slayings of three college students in New Jersey.

Criminal aliens, as the federal government classifies them, constitute more than a fourth of the inmates in federal prisons. Those still at large often fall between the cracks of an overburdened and uneven enforcement system, escaping detection and deportation.

More than 300,000 criminal aliens are expected to be placed in state and local jails this year, according to a forecast last year by the Department of Homeland Security. Most might remain in this country after serving their sentences because the federal government lacks the resources to identify, detain and deport them, the audit said.

In Lexington, while a mayoral immigration commission works to develop recommendations for Mayor Jim Newberry, a small yet vocal group is urging the enforcement of federal immigration laws by local police or jail officials.

Lexington Police Chief Anthany Beatty opposes the practice and in a recent letter to commission members stressed his department's policy of not investigating someone's citizenship unless it is connected to another crime.

Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson, who is a member of the immigration commission, pointed to Mecklenberg County and suggested that Fayette sheriff's deputies could be trained to investigate people's immigration status at the jail.

Sheriff Kathy Witt said she respects Beatty's comments. Further discussion should occur about how inmates are processed at the jail, she said.

Noting that she hasn't been part of the immigration meetings, Witt said she would like to explore the aspect of human trafficking as it relates to immigration. "I have a lot of ideas about what we need to do when we get folks to the intake center at the detention center, and they don't all relate to possible illegals," she said. "If we're going to identify illegals, are we also going to identify those brought here for the purpose of being trafficked?"

The suspect in the Newark, N.J., killings, Jose Carranza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bond on assault and child-rape charges. Authorities said they were unaware that Carranza was in the country illegally, largely because local policy prohibits questioning about immigration status.

Newark is one of dozens of cities with "sanctuary" policies designed to keep local law enforcement officers from racially profiling suspects and intimidating immigrant communities -- the type of actions that make them reluctant to report crimes and cooperate with authorities.

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, responding to the uproar over the murders of the three students and the wounding of a fourth, has ordered state and local officers to ask suspects about their immigration status and, if necessary, to notify federal immigration officials.

The Newark case erupted barely two months after Congress abandoned efforts to overhaul immigration laws, bringing new calls to further safeguard the border and root out lawbreakers among the nation's 12 million or more undocumented aliens.

The Immigration Policy Center, in a study this year, said the perception of "immigrant criminality" is greatly exaggerated and that crimes by illegal immigrants are proportionately much less than those committed by native-born white males.

But the Newark case is just one example of what Pendergraph and others describe as a deeply flawed approach to dealing with criminal aliens.

"Most of them fall between the cracks," Pendergraph said. "How many in this country are arrested daily for serious crimes, and have been convicted of serious crimes before, and nobody has bothered to check on their immigration status? It's obscene."


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