Thread: NJ: Local Police Left to Determine Policy on Illegals

Immigration's gaps: Local police left to determine policy on illegals

Sunday, May 27, 2007
By TRISH G. GRABER
Trenton Bureau


When Randy Lopez-Rivas was arrested on charges of burglary and theft, no one contacted federal immigration authorities to determine whether the teen was in the country legally.

It wasn't until last month, when he allegedly murdered his girlfriend's 3-month-old daughter in Vineland and stuffed the infant behind a basement dryer, that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reached out to locals and determined that Lopez-Rivas was an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.




In New Jersey, local police departments are not required to contact federal officials when they arrest someone suspected to be in the country illegally.

In effect, New Jersey towns handle illegal aliens as they see fit and the prior charges against Lopez-Rivas, 18, would seldom raise a red flag for most police departments, which treat known illegal immigrants just like anyone else.
"The only time we would contact the feds is if we had an incident where there were weapons involved," said Penns Grove Police Sgt. Patrick Riley. "When I say weapons, I don't mean knives or baseball bats."

It would take a large weapons cache or suspicion that the individual was planning a terrorist attack for officers to contact ICE, Riley said.

Local police departments create their own guidelines for handling illegal immigrants since enforcement falls under federal jurisdiction and the state has no set policy.

"Anywhere where the state or federal government has not made any requirements, well then departments are going to fill in the gaps themselves," said Mitchell Sklar, executive director of the New Jersey State Association of Police Chiefs.

The New Jersey Attorney General is currently working to close those gaps. Staff lawyers are researching a plan to advise local police on when they should contact federal authorities.

"We are working to establish some clear guidelines," said David Wald, a spokesman for the Attorney General. "We are close."

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Federal Focus

Even if local law enforcement had clear direction from the state, federal immigration officials in New Jersey are focused on organized crime dismantling gangs, uncovering narcotics operations and targeting human smugglers.






"We don't have the luxury to wait around for the phone to ring for some police department to call us and say Hey, we've got a guy here who's a landscaper you guys might be interested in,' " said Thomas Manifase, deputy special agent in charge of Newark's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.


The 300 ICE agents in New Jersey 42 of whom police the area south of Trenton are already spread thin, Manifase said. The public is best served by agents honing in on complex investigations, he added.

"I guess the rap on ICE, (is) that we don't handle the single issue. You know ... Jose the dishwasher who shows up in a police station," Manifase explained. "Based on our resources ... we are focusing our manpower on larger criminal groups."

On Friday, ICE officials announced the apprehension of two legal immigrants for illegal narcotics sales and seized $775,000.

On May 9, ICE agents intercepted 34 kilograms of cocaine at Newark International Airport and arrested four people. Last year, the agency cracked two major child pornography cases.

"We are focused on individuals that pose a threat to communities. We're not just out there doing sweeps of landscapers or restaurant workers," said Bartolome Rodriguez, deputy field office director of Detention and Removal Operations for ICE. "We're talking about rapists, we're talking about sexual offenders."

ICE officials say that doesn't mean they never work with local officials. They regularly team with local law enforcement on task forces, and last year assisted local police 15,000 times through their Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), a database in Vermont where local police can check immigration status and determine whether an individual is suspected of, has been arrested for, or was convicted of criminal activity.

In the last year, ICE has arrested 1,772 illegal immigrants in New Jersey and removed 987 from the United States.
Immigration's gaps: Local police left to determine policy on illegals

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ICE also placed detainers on 350 illegal immigrants last year, which is the action they took days after the murder of 3-month-old Kimberley Lopez-Rivas.
Randy Lopez-Rivas was issued a detainer, which requires that deportation proceedings begin after criminal charges are resolved.

Landscape Altered

ICE's focus in New Jersey changes as the nation's political landscape is altered. The agency was established in 2003, merging the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the U.S. Customs Service.

At the time, Manifase said, the agents' duties broadened without the corresponding support.

"We picked up twice the work with half the resources," he said.

In the past four years, budgets have increased, but the agency is far from rooting out all illegal immigrants, an issue Congress is wrestling with in Washington.

"We're doing what we can," Manifase said. "People are frustrated, and we are, too."

Rodriguez said the agency doesn't "just turn a blind eye" to illegal immigrants.

"It's that we're not actively pursuing those cases," he said. "Our cases are targeted. Our cases are lead-driven."

In the meantime, all 50 states have introduced immigration-related legislation to address the issue on their own, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Adam Puharic, spokesman for ICE, said the estimated 300 agents in New Jersey prioritize their cases and, right now, illegal immigrants flying under the radar but not committing heinous crimes do not top their list.

"When the day comes that you can assure you're 100 percent good on criminal aliens and fugitive absconders, you can re-prioritize that mix," Puharic said.



http://www.nj.com/news/sunbeam/index.ss ... xml&coll=9

There should be a State level Immgration Police force in all fifty states, commonwealths and territories.

Rather than having a sanctuary policy at the municipal level there might be a police migrant ombudsman.