Thread: NC: Immigration officers hit the streets

http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/NewsWr ... ews-1.html

Immigration officers hit the streets
By: Hannah Winkler
Times-News

After a month of schooling, Alamance County deputies have completed their training in Charlotte and have returned with a certification from the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Last week, more than two dozen deputies from Alamance, Gaston and Mecklenburg counties already working in jails across the state received certificates of graduation from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program called 287-G.

Of the 12 Alamance County deputies who began the long and intense training, only 10 made it.

In the coming weeks, they expect to complete background checks of every county inmate, looking particularly for illegal immigrants who will be processed and deported.

They began implementation of their training this week, and have already taken several inmates to Winston-Salem for processing on Tuesday.

The next steps are:
Start to process illegal immigrants who are part of the current jail population. Each time an inmate is entered into the jail database, they are asked where they were born and their citizenship status. Deputies are now using that information to interview, process and deport illegal criminals, sheriff ’s spokesman Randy Jones said.

Get the jail up and running — tentatively scheduled to open by the first of April. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is installing a computerized fingerprinting system at the sheriff ’s department, a machine that will provide detailed criminal background and immigration records within minutes.

Start the deportation process. ICE will provide a bus and an airplane to deport immigrants to the Mexican border and other points.

Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson said that roughly 30 percent of the current Alamance County jail population are illegal criminal immigrants.

"Here in Alamance County, they’re gone," Johnson said. "We’ve already started that."

Even though deputies anticipate finding, and deporting, some illegal immigrants in the next few weeks, it may not be as many as projected by the sheriff when the new jail expansion is filled.

"We haven’t quite brought in the buses yet," Maj. Ron Parrish said.
Johnson says this is not about targeting illegal immigrants in this country, he says the focus is on targeting criminals in this country illegally.

Sgt. Dan Cubino, one of two new immigration officers who speak fluent Spanish, said that illegal immigrants have to commit two criminal acts before officers focus on them.

Jones said that at some points, up to 70 percent of those inmates in jail under drug trafficking charges are Hispanic, and many of those are probably illegally in the United States.

"We’ve got a range of them — we’ve got drug traffickers, to one guy in there with assault with deadly weapon with intent to kill. Some pretty serious charges," Johnson said.

Although he admitted there were some minor charges, Johnson said that 30 percent of those immigrant charges in the jail are criminal charges.

Contact By: Hannah Winkler at hannah_winkler@link.freedom.com

Thanks for this story

In these times that our country are in I’m asking all criminal justice schools/acdemies Please include this as mandatory, and part of the intry program or graduate program. I have sent out about 100 letters but the list is long it’s not a cost that can’t be met under 500 dollars per man. I don’t want to see this opportunity whether its cause is bad, wasted besides that if the training is never used it will open up other opportunities for people when or if they decide to move up from local law to a federal job.

Funny, the article makes it sound like there might be illegal aliens in their jails. This must be a misprint. We all know they are good people that have come here to do the jobs Americans won't do. Just ask Walter Ewing, there's no higher rate of crime with illegals.

Great news and way over due. We have been over-run here in NC by illegals.