No criminal record earn immigrants' release, says ICE
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No criminal record earn immigrants' release, says ICE
Wednesday, May 3, 2006 8:44 AM CDT
Laura Ginsberg
Nine immigrants detained by the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department last Wednesday were released because background checks showed they had no criminal record, said Carl Rusnok, director of communications for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office, Central Region.
“No one in that group had a criminal background,” Rusnok said. “We weren’t about to release criminal aliens to detain non-criminal aliens.”
ICE is one of 22 agencies that falls under the Department of Homeland Security, and ICE is the only agency in charge of immigration enforcement. Rusnok said the five males and four females discovered near the 185 mile marker of I-44 were not considered a priority by ICE.
“Special agents on a daily basis have to make a priority decision,” he said. “It is not standard policy to release all non-criminal aliens, but occasionally non-criminal aliens are released. Going after criminal aliens is a higher priority.”
Rusnok said that in 2005, ICE deported 167,000 illegal aliens, 84,300 of which were criminal aliens. He said the Secure Borders Initiative (SBI) aims to add more agents to secure the borders and increase ICE’s detention and removal capabilities within the country, allowing for the agency to detain and deport more non-criminal aliens like those discovered in Phelps County.
“The issue of immigration is huge,” Rusnok said. “The key to immigration is to reduce the amount of time they [aliens] are in detention, i.e., deport them as soon as possible.”
He added that ICE has already made strides in this area.
“We’ve reduced the amount of time for detention from 90 days to 15 days and then they are deported,” he said.
Rusnok said his response to the RDN was delayed because he and other ICE agents have been swamped with calls in regards to similar immigration incidents in other counties throughout the country.
“I’ve received close to 150-200 calls and I was able to respond to around 100 of those calls,” he said. “I’ve received similar reports from my contemporaries.”
Those interested in learning more about ICE’s policies should visit their Web site at www.ice.gov.
