Thread: NC: Sheriff pursues program to ID illegal immigrants

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Sheriff pursues program to ID illegal immigrants

By Michael Knox
mknox@independenttribune.com
Thursday, November 30, 2006

CONCORD - Cabarrus County Sheriff Brad Riley is pursuing a program that could identify and help deport illegal immigrants from the jail, if approved by federal officials.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a program that can provide officers with the training and authorization to identify, process and, when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter.

The program has not been approved in Cabarrus, said Jeff Jordan, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant special agent-in-charge in North Carolina. He said the sheriff’s office is being evaluated to see if the law enforcement infrastructure is in place to allow the program to work.

Jordan said they must determine if there are enough employees to operate the program, transport illegal immigrants and have adequate jail space in the area to house illegal immigrants until they are deported.

If approved, the Cabarrus County Jail would have a program that allows deputies to fingerprint people, take their photographs and then run that information through a national database, Riley said.

Riley said the system will detect when people have been entered in the system before and if they may not be using their real names.

Riley said because Cabarrus County is so close to Charlotte, the county is impacted by crimes by illegal immigrants in that community.

“Illegal immigrants are probably one of the the biggest issues in our country today,” Riley said. “It’s one of the reasons we had the terrorist attacks of 2001.”

He said if approved, the program would require adding three to four deputies to man the program. But he said people should not be worried about this being used to profile or target anyone in the community.

“This program is not a program that actively looks for people that are victims or people who are not breaking the law,” he said. “We’re not going out and starting a project that checks anybody. It’s just the offenders that go through our jail facility and have committed a crime.”

The Cabarrus County Jail does not track illegal immigrants. But from 2003 to 2005, an average of 487 people each year listed their place of birth as Mexico. Those aren’t illegal immigrants, but potential illegal immigrants, according to jail records.

There potentially could be a higher number since illegals can come from other countries as well, officials said.

So far, the Mecklenburg County Jail has seen success with the program they have that targets illegal immigrants.

Local and federal authorities identified more than 900 illegal immigrants detained in Mecklenburg County jails since a new federal program started in April.

Of the 930 illegal immigrants identified by Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s deputies, almost half - about 450 - would have been released had law enforcement not taken the time to identify the inmates, officials said. At least 128 have been deported.

According to a September 2005 report, the program has had success with 62 trained officers in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, 21 in the Alabama State Police and 25 more scheduled to earn certification this year.

Jordan said the success has more communities, like Cabarrus County, considering the program. Jordan said if approved, the county would have deputies go through a training process that lasts a little more than three weeks.

“This has been available for several years and has not enjoyed a lot of popularity until recently,” Jordan said. “Since we’ve gotten Mecklenburg on line it’s spawned a lot of interest nationally.”

Contact Michael Knox at mknox@independenttribune.com or 704-789-9144.

When this system is used and the ILLEGALS have been identified and transported to ICE, do we know who & how many are actually DEPORTED? Or does the information stop with the transportation to ICE?

Since we know that OBL's are, for the most part, the ones that are deported more often, we still don't know if they're letting mexican ILLEGALS back onto our streets after they've served their jail time.

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