Thread: Preckwinkle Blasted for Ignoring ICE Laws

nbcchicago.com
By Phil Rogers
Thursday, Jan 12, 2012
Updated 12:58 PM CST


The Director of the United States Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has written Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, blasting the County’s decision to ignore immigration detainers at Cook County Jail, warning her that the County is likely in violation of federal law.

ICE Director John Morton suggested the County’s decision to release accused criminals back into the community without informing immigration, was a danger to the community.

“The ordinance disrupts the federal government’s efforts to remove deportable criminal offenders from the country, and instead allows for their release back into the community,” Morton wrote. “The release of so many of these individuals to the streets of Cook County is deeply troubling, and directly undermines public safety.”

Recently, a man charged in a fatal hit and run vanished shortly after his family bonded him out of Cook County Jail, and law enforcement officials conceded he had likely fled to Mexico. Immigration had placed a detainer on the man, Saul Chavez, asking that they be informed if he was released, so that they could place him in federal custody. In keeping with the new County policy, that request was ignored.

Morton noted that since the ordinance was enacted last September, Cook County has defied detainers on 268 individuals, “who have been charged with, or convicted of a crime, including serious and violent offenses like assault on a law enforcement officer.” He warned the Cook County President that the County may be in violation of federal law.

“The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that a local government entity may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, [ICE], information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual,” Morton wrote. “This provision is designed to ensure that ICE’s ability to enforce immigration law in our communities is not unduly obstructed.”

Morton reminded Preckwinkle that the County receives millions of dollars from the federal government, to reimburse the costs associated with detaining illegal immigrants, and indicated those funds are now in jeopardy. Under that program, known as SCAAP, Cook County received nearly $3.4 million in 2010, and nearly $4.4 million in 2009. The 2011 allotment was $2.29 million.

“It is fundamentally inconsistent for Cook County to request federal reimbursement for the cost of detaining aliens who commit or are charged with crimes, while at the same time thwarting ICE’s efforts to remove those very same aliens from the United States.”

Cook County Commissioner Tim Schneider said the ICE director's letter reflects "exactly the concerns that I have."

"Why should the federal government supply us with funds for a program we're not complying with?"

Schneider said he will attempt to pass an amendment to the ordinance at this month’s County Board meeting, to reinstate notifications for certain felonies.

"This is not about immigration," Schneider said. "This is not about race. This is about public safety."

Preckwinkle told the Chicago Sun-Times Thursday that she was not in favor of changing the law.

Source: Preckwinkle Blasted for Ignoring ICE Laws | NBC Chicago

chicagotribune.com
By John Byrne Clout Street
5:39 p.m. CST, January 12, 2012

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Thursday refused to consider cooperating with federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants in county jail, calling instead for a task force to look at how to improve the way bail is set in all county criminal cases.

The announcement came days after a federal immigration official wrote her a letter warning that the county undermines public safety by not keeping suspected illegal immigrants in custody while agents decide whether to deport them.

But Preckwinkle said focusing on the relatively small number of illegal immigrants who commit crimes or fail to turn up in court after making bond in criminal cases is divisive. “This type of fear-mongering is distasteful, and has no place in the public policy arena,” said Preckwinkle, a Democrat with a liberal Hyde Park political pedigree.

“There are countless individuals — black, white, brown — who commit crimes and are brought before a judge in bond court,” Preckwinkle said at a downtown news conference. “Decisions about whether to detain or release them back into the community must be based on accurate and reliable information.”

The Cook County Judicial Advisory Council will conduct a six-month study on how bail is set in county courts, Preckwinkle said. The group will look in particular at ways to provide judges with better information before the often rapid-fire bond hearings where they have to make quick judgments about how likely defendants are to flee the area or commit more crimes if they get out.

Preckwinkle said she was “outraged” by the case of Saul Chavez, an illegal immigrant who made bail on charges he struck and killed pedestrian William McCann while allegedly driving drunk in the Logan Square neighborhood, then stopped showing up for court. Chavez, who had a prior felony conviction, was able to get out of jail by posting $25,000.

“It’s a tragedy because it could have been avoided,” Preckwinkle said. But she said the problem was that Chavez’s bond should have been set higher in light of his criminal background, not that he should have been treated differently due to his immigration status.

“There should be one set of laws for citizens, and one set of laws for people who are undocumented, who are not citizens. One set of laws, the same laws,” she said.

County commissioners voted in September to stop honoring requests from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to detain suspects who were in jail on other charges until the agency checked their immigration status. At the time, Preckwinkle said the move was made for financial reasons.

Preckwinkle not backing down on illegal immigrant criminal cases - chicagotribune.com

But Preckwinkle said focusing on the relatively small number of illegal immigrants who commit crimes or fail to turn up in court after making bond in criminal cases is divisive. “This type of fear-mongering is distasteful, and has no place in the public policy arena,” said Preckwinkle,

Relatively small? I call BS! If just 1 to 3% of IAs in the US do commit crimes, including murder, rape, vehicular manslaughter while DUI etc. the numbers become staggering! 10M IAs 100,000 to 300,000 such acts (though I believe this to be an underestimate).

Imagine if a politician were asked, "If you KNEW you could save thousands of lives and prevent untold damages to society by doing just one thing, one thing that is perfectly legal already, would you do that thing?"

wbez.org
by Chip Mitchell
Jan. 12, 2012


Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is defending a policy of freeing some inmates wanted by immigration authorities.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Thursday defended an ordinance that frees some inmates wanted by immigration authorities. Instead of reconsidering the measure, she asked for a study to identify better ways for the county’s judges to set bail in criminal cases.

The ordinance, passed in September, bars compliance with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests that certain inmates remain in the county’s jail up to two business days after they have posted bond or completed their court cases. The requests, known as detainers, gave ICE time to pick up the inmates for possible deportation.

Last week a letter to Preckwinkle from ICE Director John Morton said the ordinance “undermines public safety in Cook County and hinders ICE’s ability to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.”

Morton’s letter says ICE has lodged detainers against more than 268 Cook County inmates since the ordinance passed. It says the county has not honored any of them, “preventing ICE from considering removal proceedings against all but 15 of these individuals whom we were able to locate independently and arrest following their release into the community.”

The letter also refers to a case that local newspapers have been covering. As the story goes, a Mexican immigrant named Saúl Chávez allegedly killed a pedestrian in a Northwest Side hit-and-run incident last year. Despite a previous DUI conviction, a Cook County judge set Chávez’s bond at $250,000, Preckwinkle’s office says. When Chávez posted the required 10 percent, or $25,000, the jail released him last fall, reportedly disregarding an ICE detainer. Since then, the newspapers add, Chávez has missed his court appointments, leading to a federal arrest warrant.

Preckwinkle on Thursday afternoon said that case “outraged” her but said she was sticking by the ordinance and introducing a board resolution for the county’s Judicial Advisory Council to undertake a six-month study of the bail bond system. The five-member panel, chaired by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, will recommend ways to improve pretrial services so judges can “make better-informed decisions on bond amounts,” a statement from Preckwinkle’s office says.

The release of county inmates should be left to the courts, not immigration officials, Preckwinkle said at a downtown news conference. “It’s the responsibility of the judicial system to determine whether or not someone is a flight risk, a danger to themselves or a danger to society,” she said. “And once the judicial system makes that decision, that should be the end of it.”

Preckwinkle’s stand is getting flak from some County Board members who voted against the ordinance. Commissioner Peter Silvestri (R-Elmwood Park) said he shared her concern about the county’s bond system. But he said the board should allow the sheriff to honor the ICE detainers. “We should return that discretion to the chief law-enforcement officer of the county,” Silvestri said.

ICE took custody of 721 Cook County inmates on detainers in 2011 and 1,665 in 2010, according to Sheriff Tom Dart’s office. The ordinance requires the jail to free such inmates unless the federal government agrees in advance to pay for the extended confinement.

Jesús García (D-Chicago) and other commissioners who backed the measure say the detainers violated inmates’ due-process rights and eroded community trust in local police. A federal court ruling in Indiana last summer said compliance with ICE detainers is voluntary.

Preckwinkle asks for study of bail bonds | WBEZ

suntimes.com
By MARK BROWN
Updated: January 12, 2012 2:14AM


Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle called Wednesday to say she is not backing down from a new county ordinance that some are blaming for allowing an illegal immigrant accused in a fatal drunk driving accident to skip the country.

Instead, Preckwinkle said she’ll ask county commissioners to instruct her Judicial Advisory Council to conduct a comprehensive study of our bail bond system as it operates in Cook County’s criminal courts — a system that she believes too often fails to differentiate between who is a danger to the public and who isn’t.

Preckwinkle thinks that’s the real issue exposed in the sad hit-and-run death of William “Denny” McCann, who was walking in his Logan Square neighborhood last year when he was struck by a car allegedly driven by a drunk Saul Chavez, a Mexican immigrant who authorities say was living here illegally. I think she’s on the right track.

McCann’s family is understandably angry because Chavez, who had been held in Cook County Jail on $250,000 bond, bonded out in November and has since failed to show up for court appearances. On Monday, a federal magistrate issued an arrest warrant for Chavez at the request of the FBI.

McCann’s family — and others who have taken up the cause — blame his fugitive status on the fact county commissioners months earlier had approved an ordinance taking the county out of the immigration enforcement business.

No longer does the jail honor requests by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to continue holding suspected illegal immigrants once they’ve posted bond or completed their court cases.

Preckwinkle said she is sympathetic to the McCann family.

“I can understand their pain and their anger,” she told me. “This is an infuriating situation … and there’s nothing I can say but that I’m very, very sorry.”

She said she’s as interested as anyone in minimizing the chance of it happening again but has a different idea of what that takes.

As a normal rule, there’s nothing particularly brave about an officeholder looking to an outside panel to study an issue that has become a political hot potato.

But in light of current efforts to demagogue the Chavez case, it’s particularly commendable for Preckwinkle to stand firm behind her original policy decision while seeking a more thoughtful review.

As Preckwinkle says, the real issue is how we decide who needs to be held in jail pending trial and who doesn’t. The current system is suspect at best, as anyone who has witnessed the rapid-fire bond hearings conducted in criminal court can attest.

“Bonds are capricious and arbitrary, and the whole community is impacted by that,” Preckwinkle asserted.

Judges have only seconds, based on sparse information, to determine proper bail — taking into account a defendant’s flight risk and potential danger to the community.

Saul Chavez, who had previously been convicted of another felony DUI, was clearly someone who should have been kept in jail pending trial. In determining flight risk, judges are allowed to take into account a defendant’s immigration status. Obviously, there was a considerable likelihood that if set free, Chavez would do precisely what he is suspected of doing — fleeing to Mexico.

But that’s no justification for every suspected illegal immigrant accused of a crime to be held in jail. Judges need to make these decisions on the total situation, just as they do for white and black Americans, some of whom also skip out on bond while nonviolent offenders are kept in jail.

Preckwinkle said she thinks those who would use the Chavez case to resume holding illegal immigrants in jail are “pandering to fear-mongering and race-baiting.”

I believe she was referring in particular to Commissioner Timothy Schneider, who has led the charge, calling this county government’s “Willie Horton moment” — a reference to a convicted felon who became a household name in the 1988 presidential race when Republicans made his black face the star of their campaign commercials against Michael Dukakis. Despite serving a life sentence, Horton was free on a weekend furlough program when he raped a woman.

I read in another paper that Horton became a symbol of bureaucratic stupidity. I’d say Horton also became a symbol of how an unscrupulous politician could win votes by using race to sow fear.

Preckwinkle isn’t going to play that game. More power to her.

Preckwinkle stands firm on not holding illegal immigrants in jail once bond is posted - Chicago Sun-Times

chicagotribune.com
John Kass
January 12, 2012

Update:
Federal immigration official warns Preckwinkle about policy

The embarrassment never ceases for the Cook County Board of Commissioners' famed "Chavez 11" and their poster boy, Saul Chavez.

Now the FBI has a warrant out for Chavez's arrest on charges that he fled Cook County to escape prosecution in a drunken driving case. The reason the FBI had to get a warrant? Because the politicians on the Cook County Board voted for a ridiculous policy that allowed him to run.

In June 2011, Chavez, a suspected illegal immigrant, had just completed probation for a 2009 drunken driving conviction when he allegedly drove drunk and without a license in an accident that killed 66-year-old pedestrian William "Dennis" McCann, whose body was dragged down Kedzie Avenue.

"What do I think? I really don't think anybody is going to find him," McCann's brother, Brian McCann, told me Wednesday.

Under prior policy, if Chavez had made bond, he would have been held in jail on what's called a "federal detainer" until federal immigration officials could have picked him up as a suspected illegal immigrant for deportation.

But in a new policy approved in September by 10 Democratic county commissioners and Board President Toni Preckwinkle, the county decided not to honor the detainers.

Chavez was being held on a $250,000 bond in the County Jail when the new ordinance was voted on. Miraculously, he came up with the necessary 10 percent of that amount, $25,000. He walked out of jail, then missed two subsequent court dates and disappeared.

The FBI complaint was filed this week and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole. Chavez is presumed to have run to his native Mexico. FBI Special Agent Pablo Araya, an FBI fugitive coordinator, said in an affidavit that Chavez is from the Mexican state of Michoacan.

According to the affidavit, Chavez's brother Edmondo Chavez told investigators that after he posted his brother's bond, Saul Chavez stayed in their house on the 3200 block of West Wilson Avenue. "Chavez stayed in the house they shared and would not leave," Araya said in the affidavit.

"However, a few days later, when Edmondo Chavez returned from work he found the house empty," Araya said, adding that the brother was worried about losing the bond money.

Who believes that one?

"You tell me," said McCann. "You think they're going to find him?"

With enough heat, maybe. The least that will happen is that information about Saul Chavez will be put up on federal law enforcement computer systems. If he returns to the U.S. and is stopped for a ticket under his own name, he'll be pinched.

It should be noted that not all the Democrats on the board voted for this foolish policy that encourages illegal immigrants to run. Cook County Commissioner John Daley, who was worried about exactly this kind of thing, wisely voted no.

When it happened, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart didn't put up much of a fuss, and neither did Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. The two top Democrats don't want to lose their law enforcement cred, but they also don't want to be perceived as being on the wrong side of the Latino vote. Who said Chicago politics was all candy and nuts and trucking contracts?

On Thursday, Dart and Alvarez may find some political cover as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has invited them to a meeting in Chicago with top Justice Department officials, the FBI, Interpol and others. Fugitives are on the agenda. Durbin called the meeting not to specifically address the Chavez fiasco, but to discuss problems exposed by the Tribune's recent investigative series "Fugitives from Justice."

Reporters David Jackson and Gary Marx examined hundreds of international fugitive cases from northern Illinois and found lack of coordination between federal officials here and their counterparts in other countries. They also took a trip to Mexico to make their own search for nine fugitives. Jackson and Marx found eight of them, including five charged with homicides, two accused of sexually abusing children, and one who allegedly shot and wounded a man.

The Chavez mess has embarrassed the political class like no other fugitive incident since the disappearance of city contractor Marco Morales in 1997.

Morales was sentenced on a federal drug charge and then told prosecutors that he paid bribes to top aides in then-Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration. Rather than tell more to a federal grand jury about corruption, Morales fled to Mexico, and lived quite openly for years, keeping his mouth shut. He said he'd been threatened by the Outfit. Amazingly, his son quickly received $40 million in city contracts. Daley officials insisted that it was all just a coincidence.

After the statute of limitations on the bribery ran out, Morales was arrested, extradited to the U.S. and sent to prison to complete his drug sentence.

Now, Saul Chavez is the latest fugitive to make local politicians look bad. Unlike Morales, he's not dangerous to Chicago's political infrastructure. But he is embarrassing to the Chavez 11.

"I don't think he's ever coming back," said McCann. "And the only justice to be returned to the McCann family in my opinion is to fix the problem created by the Cook County Board."

jskass@tribune.com

John Kass: Does Cook County Board want fugitive found? - chicagotribune.com

dailyherald.com
By Jamie Sotonoff
Article updated: 1/12/2012 7:16 PM

Cook County Commissioner Tim Schneider of Bartlett hopes to amend the new ordinance that allows the county to release suspected illegal immigrants from jail without notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even if they are charged with a felony.

At the Jan. 18 board meeting, Schneider will propose an amendment that would require the county to notify ICE when detainees who committed forceable felonies or are on a terrorism watch list are released.

Schneider’s still ironing out the exact wording, but his proposal already has the support of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, spokesmen for both said last week.

Another supporter is Hanover Park Village President Rodney Craig, who blasted the law last fall after three suspected illegal immigrants accused of assaulting two of his village’s police officers were released back into the community, rather than being detained and turned over to ICE.

Next week, Craig will introduce a resolution to the U.S. Council of Mayors seeking support of the ordinance amendment. Craig’s also been in touch with a few Republican senators from outside Illinois who oppose the law and urged Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to get involved. So far, she has not, Schneider said.

“We have got to do something about this,” Schneider said. “It’s a public safety issue.”

The law — proposed by Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and endorsed by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and approved in September — was hailed as a way to protect misuse of ICE detainers and save the county $15 million to $20 million in expenses for detainee housing.

Opponents of the controversial law say that number is way off — they set the cost of complying with detainers at about $250,000 — and doesn’t take into account the $3.4 million in federal funds the county gets to house illegal immigrant detainees.

A letter from ICE Director John Morton to Preckwinkle Jan. 4, obtained by the Daily Herald Thursday, warned the law undermines public safety and disrupts the federal government’s efforts to remove deportable criminal offenders from the country.

Morton asked Preckwinkle to amend the ordinance “to avoid any legal conflict with federal law and to restore sensible cooperation between Cook County and ICE.”

Preckwinkle is open to the idea of amending the law, her press secretary said, but believes the root of the problem is bond reform. If the judges set higher bails for felony crimes, the suspects would stay in jail.

“One of our top priorities is to find a way to engage in bond reform, so people who are threats to public safety aren’t released back on the streets before adjudication,” said Preckwinkle’s press secretary, Liane Jackson.

In a guest essay to the Daily Herald in October, Commissioner Garcia defended the law, saying it is wrong to presume someone is guilty before they’ve had their day in court.

“By refusing to detain people who are entitled to their freedom, based merely on a request from ICE, we are upholding our system of justice — the very system that protects us from criminal misconduct,” Garcia wrote.

Renewed criticism

The law is facing renewed criticism because of the case of Saul Chavez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was charged with the drunken driving death of William McCann in Chicago last summer.

Police said Chavez was driving drunk down Kedzie Avenue when he struck McCann, ran him over, and dragged him more than 200 feet. Chavez was charged with aggravated driving under the influence, a felony.

Two days later, suspecting Chavez was an illegal immigrant, ICE filed an immigration detainer. However, Chavez — who had a prior DUI conviction — posted 10 percent of the $250,000 bail set for him by Cook County Judge Ramon Ocasio III and disappeared. Because of the new county law, ICE was never notified of Chavez’s release, and authorities now believe he fled to his native Mexico, ABC 7 Chicago reported.

Schneider says the Chavez case is “the poster child” for the problem with this new law.

“It’s only a matter of time ... until someone else is let out and injures someone,” said Schneider, who opposed the law from the get-go. “We can’t let this go on and have more Saul Chavezes let out of jail.”

An ICE official, who asked that his name not be used, said since the law went into effect, the agency has filed more than 280 detainers on people in Cook County jail who were considered “removable criminal aliens” and hasn’t been notified about any of them being released. As a result, ICE has been able to apprehend only 16 of them.

“If they had honored the detainers, we would have taken 280 people into custody,” said the ICE official, adding that the agency could have removed countless more if the county didn’t prohibit it from going into the jail and interviewing other potential detainees.

“It is absolutely horrible public policy and creates a threat to the community,” the ICE official added. “They’ve made it very close to impossible to effectively identify and remove illegal aliens.”

Schneider fears the county is opening itself up to lawsuits if people with ICE detainers are released by the county and go out and harm someone else.

“There’d be a number of lawyers who would want to take that case and sue Cook County,” Schneider said. “We’re putting taxpayers’ money in jeopardy and taxpayers in jeopardy.”

Craig says he’s heard nothing but support for the amendment.

“The only concern I hear is, ‘Is someone with a broken taillight going to be arrested and deported?’ That’s not what this is about,” he said. “Those who are here and are trying to do the right thing, we need to help them become citizens and become successful. But then we have these others who are clearly causing a problem.”

Schneider: Revise county law on jailed illegal immigrants - DailyHerald.com

chicago.cbslocal.com
January 12, 2012 5:31 PM

Audio at link

CHICAGO (CBS) – Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle lashed out Thursday at critics of a county ordinance that some have blamed for allowing an illegal immigrant to flee the country after he was released on bond in a fatal drunk driving case.

Preckwinkle said opponents of the ordinance are “fear-mongering” in the wake of news reports that the suspect fled to Mexico after he was released from jail.

The dispute stems from a new county ordinance stopping the county jail from honoring requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs officials to continue detaining suspected illegal immigrants after they post bond.

It’s the latest development in the case of Saul Chavez, who was allowed to bond out of jail on a DUI charge and then fled the country.

Days after Chavez was arrested, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials issued a detainer request, asking that they be notified when Chavez posted bond and continue holding him for up to 48 hours so agents could arrest him for possible deportation.

But the new county ordinance requires the jail to ignore such requests.

This all revolves around the death of a pedestrian, William McCann. Chavez was charged with running over McCann while driving drunk.

The director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has written a letter to Preckwinkle, saying the county’s ordinance undermines public safety.

Preckwinkle lashed out about the criticism on Thursday.

“I’m angry because there are people who are trying to use this complicated issue to divide our communities. This type of fear-mongering is distasteful and has no place in the public policy arena,” she said.

Preckwinkle said she is launching a six-month study of how bonds are set, believing the court system too often fails to properly determine which suspects are a danger to the public.

Preckwinkle Slams Critics Of County Policy On Detaining Immigrants « CBS Chicago

whbf.com
The Associated Press
Updated: Jan 13, 2012 8:48 AM EST

CHICAGO (AP) - The debate over Cook County's policy of ignoring federal requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants after they complete their jail sentences or post bond is heating up after reports that an illegal immigrant charged in a fatal hit & run accident posted bond and disappeared.

With the media reporting the disappearance, the nation's immigration director weighed in with a letter to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, telling her the county's policy may violate federal law and undermines public safety.

But Preckwinkle is refusing to reconsider the policy. She says illegal immigrants should be treated like anyone else. She says the problem in the case of the suspect who disappeared isn't his immigration status but that his bond was too low to ensure he wouldn't flee.

Debate heats up over policy of jailing immigrants - CBS4 RTV4 WHBF Quad Cities, IL-IA News Weather Sports