Published: 11:39 PM, Sat Dec 05, 2009
Sheriff withdraws from ICE program
By Nancy McCleary
Staff writer



Sheriff Moose Butler has decided to end his department's participation in a program designed to alert authorities to illegal residents.

The program, known as 287(g), allows local law enforcement officers to team with federal agents to enforce immigration laws. It falls under the umbrella of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office signed on in June 2008 to have its jailers participate, according to the ICE Web site.

Butler opted not to continue in the pilot program because of bureaucratic delays, said Debbie Tanna, the sheriff's spokeswoman.

"It took longer to get up and operating than expected," Tanna said.

There was a three-week wait to get the required equipment, she said, and then no one qualified to install it could come.

There also was a delay in getting training for jailers, Tanna said.

Then, ICE wanted authority to review jailers' personnel files, and Butler wouldn't agree to that, saying it would violate state personnel regulations, Tanna said.

There was a space issue with the jail, too, she said.

The jail operates at maximum capacity, and signing on to the program would mean giving up space to illegal residents awaiting action by ICE rather than the Sheriff's Office, she said.

Nor did the numbers support staying in the program.

From January though September, 131 people who were not born in the United States were processed through the county's booking officers, with 47 of them put into removal proceedings, according to Sheriff's Office documents.

Of the people who were detained in Cumberland County, 29 of them - or 61.7 percent - were from Mexico.

Forty-three charges filed against those who were detained were misdemeanors, the majority being driving while impaired and traffic violations, accounting for 22 of the 43 violations.

Only four people faced felony charges.

Alamance County Commissioner Tim Sutton is a fan of the program. Alamance County, he said, was the second in the state to sign on with ICE and the eighth in the United States.

"I think it's a great program," he said, "but it depends on your location and on the degree of problem you feel you have.

"We have a tremendous problem here with illegal immigrants."

Much of Alamance County's crime problem - from drugs to drunken driving - can be traced to illegal residents, said Sutton, who did not have have specific numbers available.

For nearly 20 years, Alamance County has designated a part of its jail for inmates awaiting action by federal immigration authorities, Sutton said.

It's hard to think that Cumberland County doesn't have a high number of illegal residents, Sutton said, especially with the Smithfield hog-slaughtering plant in Tar Heel so close.

It only makes sense to be able to track down information on anyone who is arrested, Sutton said.

"Are you going to let any other criminal go, or check (a person's background) to the fullest?" he asked. "When you write a ticket and don't look (at criminal history), you don't know if a person has murdered someone and fled to Cumberland County.

"When you don't know who you've got and you've got the potential to find out and you've turned your back on it for any reason, it's not good," he said.

Tony Asion, executive director of the statewide Latino advocacy group El Pueblo, disagreed.

"The program was not designed to be utilized this way," said Asion, who retired after 20 years as a state Highway Patrol trooper.

The program allows deportation proceedings on convicted and habitual felons who are in the country illegally, Asion said.

But it is being abused by some who use it for racial profiling, he said.

He cited one case in Alamance County in which a state trooper stopped a commercial bus headed to Mexico, went aboard and searched residents and their belongings without having a reason or a warrant to do so.

"It's a system that lends itself to being abused," Asion said.

Sutton said counties and states that don't participate in the program run the risk of having more illegal residents moving into the communities, which they may see as sanctuaries.

"If illegals believe Cumberland County is a sanctuary, they will flock there."

Asion called that logic "ludicrous."

"There are 14,200 police departments in the country ... and 60 of them are doing 287(g), and eight of them are in North Carolina," he said. "So are we saying that because there are 14,140 departments that don't have it, that the the rest of the country is a sanctuary?" Asion asked.

"We're sticking our head in the sand to avoid dealing with immigration reform."

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2009/12/06/945740