Thread: DSU slayings put focus on immigration

DSU slayings put focus on immigration
Responsibility of local agencies under scrutiny as debate rages
By SUMMER HARLOW, The News Journal
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs ... /1006/NEWS
Posted Sunday, August 26, 2007

Jose Lachira Carranza should never have been released on bail.

As an undocumented immigrant from Peru facing assault and child rape charges, an immigration detainer would have prevented his release to anyone except federal immigration authorities. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they never were notified about Carranza.

Rather than awaiting deportation, he posted $150,000 bond in May, and walked out of a New Jersey jail. Three months later, he is back in custody, charged as the ringleader in the Aug. 4 execution-style killings of three students bound for Delaware State University this fall, and the wounding of another.

Carranza slipped through the cracks of what by all accounts is a broken immigration system. He is not the exception to the rule.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants are arrested, stopped or questioned by local police. But in most incidents, federal immigration authorities are not contacted, especially when the offense is as minor as a speeding ticket or driving without a license. Police argue their job is to enforce local laws, and that immigration officials are too short-staffed to respond unless a crime has been committed.

Federal law mandates that undocumented immigrants who are convicted of crimes be sent back to their homelands, but less than half of the foreign-born convicted of crimes are deported after serving their sentences, according to the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general.

A 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office says about 55,322 undocumented immigrants were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails in December 2003. They were arrested 459,614 times -- an average of more than 8 per immigrant -- and charged with about 700,000 criminal offenses -- an average of 13 offenses per immigrant.

The report also found that each undocumented immigrant had been arrested an average of eight times.

As of Aug. 15, Delaware's prisons were housing 43 foreign-born inmates with immigration detainers against them -- including one for first-degree murder and one for second-degree murder. One was serving time for first-degree rape, and three for cocaine trafficking, according to Delaware Department of Correction spokesman John Painter.

Americans can't be assured undocumented immigrants who commit crimes will automatically end up behind bars or deported, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limiting immigration.

"This wasn't just someone who had snuck into the country and gone unnoticed," Mehlman said of Carranza. "He had been arrested on previous occasions, yet local authorities willingly turned a blind eye. ... Politicians were more interested in letting illegal immigrants feel welcome than protecting the public's interest."

Still, the percentage of non-citizens in prison is lower than the percentage of incarcerated citizens. And the number of non-citizens in prisons is disproportionately low when compared with their representation in the population at large.

Slayings stir national debate

Outrage over the role of Carranza, and possibly one other undocumented immigrant, in the schoolyard shootings in Newark, N.J., on top of frustration with Congress' abandonment of comprehensive immigration reform, has renewed debate nationwide about what responsibility local police have to report suspected undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.

Some cities, such as Los Angeles and New York, have become de facto, even explicit, "sanctuaries" for undocumented immigrants. Other communities, such as many in Delaware, haven't developed a written policy about what to do when an officer suspects someone of being here illegally.

On Wednesday, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram ordered the state's law enforcers to notify immigration officials whenever an unauthorized immigrant is arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving.

But such a mandate is uncommon.

Delaware Department of Justice spokesman Jason Miller said state law does not allow the department to give orders to police departments.

However, he said, the department "does and will work with state, local, and federal law enforcement to see that federal authorities are advised about criminals who appear to be illegal aliens."

And with most communities leaving any contact with federal authorities to local officers' discretion, state legislators are taking matters into their own hands.

Of the more than 1,400 immigration-related bills introduced in state legislatures in the first six months of this year, 148 bills in 34 states dealt with law enforcement, such as denying bail to undocumented immigrants or increasing funding for local enforcement of immigration laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., pushed a bill through the House that would require a monthly check of all U.S. prisons and jails to identify all current incarcerated undocumented immigrants.

Federal, state laws at odds

Addison Wright, a Delaware State University student whose fraternity started a fund for the families of the victims -- Terrance Aeriel, 18; Dashon Harvey, 20; and Iofemi Hightower, 20, were killed and Natasha Aeriel, 19, was seriously wounded -- said he was shocked to learn that at least two of the killers were living in New Jersey illegally.

And he didn't understand why immigration officials weren't notified as soon as Carranza first was arrested.

"What a waste, because it could have been prevented," he said. "It kind of scares me. It really makes you think."

For jailed unauthorized immigrants nationwide, 24 percent of arrests were for drug offenses, and 21 percent for immigration offenses. About 2 percent were for sex offenses, and 1 percent for murder, according to the GAO report.

Wright said he knows not all unauthorized immigrants are criminals.

"I've heard a lot about how they're hard workers, and they want to live here because it's better living here in America," he said. "But then you hear stuff like this. ... If you know someone's an illegal immigrant, why wouldn't you report that?"

Many Delaware law enforcement agencies have adopted a practice of "don't ask, don't tell" when officers come across suspected undocumented immigrants, unless those individuals are involved in a crime.

"There's no local crime of being an illegal alien," said Wilmington Police Master Sgt. Steven Barnes.

In fact, courts in Kansas, Oregon and Minnesota have ruled that while entering the United States without authorization is illegal, just being in the country is not.

Anti-illegal immigration groups argue that involving local law enforcement acts as a deterrent, keeping undocumented immigrants from getting too comfy.

But others, including many in law enforcement, say that inquiring about legal status when a person isn't involved in a crime just increases mistrust and undercuts the cooperation of the immigrant community.

For example, Georgetown Police Chief William Topping said he felt it was important to reach out to the town's Hispanic community and establish a working relationship "so we know what's going on inside our town."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Ernestine Fobbs said she doesn't know how many local jurisdictions let immigration officials know when officers come into contact with unauthorized immigrants.

"It's up to the individual law enforcement agencies," she said, although she said she hoped all agencies would contact ICE when officers believe an individual is a threat to national security or public safety.

But the immigration office has not issued an official recommendation that law enforcement do so, she said.

Nor did Congress' failed comprehensive immigration reform bill contain any such provision.

While Dover police contact immigration authorities only when a crime has been committed, officers still fill out an information card with personal data about every unauthorized person encountered, said Capt. Lester Boney. That card is kept on file and a copy is forwarded to immigration authorities, he said.

"We know we have the information on file, so if something comes up, we would have a point of contact," Boney said. "It gives you a place to start with the investigation."

ICE lacks proper funds, staff

Every year, ICE's Law Enforcement Support Center gets 700,000 inquiries from across the country about suspected unauthorized immigrants.

In fiscal 2005, the center received 579 queries from Delaware law enforcement agencies. Through August, there were 243 inquiries in fiscal 2006.

Police say part of the problem is that immigration officials don't have the capacity to respond every time local officers pull over an undocumented immigrant for a traffic violation.

In fact, according to a Department of Homeland Security inspector general report, most of the incarcerated foreign-born are being released after they serve their sentences because immigration authorities are short the "resources to identify, detain and remove these aliens."

The Homeland report estimated that another $1.1 billion, 33,150 detention beds and 1,008 more immigration enforcement agents -- only 261 were funded through last fiscal year -- are needed to deport all the incarcerated criminal immigrants.

In other words, the report is calling for a facility with enough beds for more than 4.5 times Delaware's entire prison population.

To help, immigration authorities have implemented a training program that cross-designates local officers to enforce immigration law. More than 60 local and state agencies nationwide have requested memorandums of understanding to train more than 400 local officers.

Topping said that in May he applied to the program, but so far he hasn't heard whether Georgetown officers will receive the training.

Elsmere Police Chief Neal Strauss said he hasn't really considered pursuing the training for his department.

"What it comes down to is my officers were hired to patrol the town of Elsmere and enforce local and state laws," he said. Local police can't be expected to do the federal job, too, he said.

Boney said that without congressional reform, local and federal officers are going to have to work together.

"There's never going to be enough federal employees in every area of the country," he said. "We have to work hand in hand to keep track of people in this country."

Few violent criminals

With a projected 302,500 deportable immigrants in the nation's prisons and jails, critics contend immigration officials have been ignoring criminals in their push to target employers of undocumented immigrants.

Of the 1,282 workers rounded up in immigration raids at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in December, only about 50 face criminal charges -- all for identity theft or use of fraudulent documents. Nor were any of the 362 textile workers arrested in Massachusetts in a March raid charged with a violent crime.

Immigrant advocate groups caution that a few criminals' actions shouldn't be used to condemn all 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

A 2007 study from the Immigration Policy Center think tank found that this country's crime "is not 'caused' or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status."

As the undocumented population doubled since 1994, violent crime dropped 34.2 percent, and property crimes fell 26.4 percent, the study found.

The incarceration rate among U.S.-born men age 18-39 was five-times higher than that of foreign-born men in the same age range, according to the study.

In 2006, 547 of every 100,000 U.S. citizens were incarcerated, compared with 441 of every 100,000 non-citizens, according to Department of Justice statistics.

Mehlman said it's true that not all undocumented immigrants are committing crimes, but that doesn't mean they should be ignored.

"If you don't know who you're letting in, you're going to be letting people in who will commit homicides and other heinous crimes," he said.

Contact Summer Harlow at 324-2794 or sharlow@delawareonline.com

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