Law enforcement officials say there is no uniform policy on illegal aliens


Reporting the arrests of undocumented immigrants to U.S. authorities is at the discretion of each police department or agency, Berks law enforcers say.


By Steven Henshaw
Reading Eagle


8/24/2007 10:54:00 PM



Reading, PA - Berks County law enforcement officials say they are not guided by a uniform policy on alerting U.S. immigration authorities when they arrest criminal suspects who may be illegal aliens.

Reporting undocumented immigrants is at the discretion of each police department or agency.

In that regard, Berks appears similar to New Jersey, where the Aug. 4 execution-style slayings of three college students in Newark has prompted an outcry over a lack of communication between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.

One of the six suspects was an illegal immigrant who had been granted bail on child rape and aggravated assault charges without immigration officials being alerted to his existence.

Immigration officials have said they would have moved toward getting the man deported had they known about him, but local officials said they didn’t know he was undocumented.

After a review of the state’s policies, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram ordered the state’s law enforcers to notify immigration officials whenever someone arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving is found to be an illegal immigrant.

In Berks, different notification procedures exist for law enforcement agencies.

In Reading, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit visits City Hall at least once a week.

Capt. Francis F. Drexler, head of the city criminal investigation division, said investigators routinely put copies of criminal complaints in a bin set aside for the immigration official.

Suburban departments don’t get regular visits by immigration officials.

But local departments say they at least make an effort to notify immigration officials when they arrest someone they know is an illegal.

Immigration authorities can place a detainer on the defendant, which means deportation will commence when the defendant goes through the court system and completes his sentence.

“We basically deal with the crime involved,â€