Thread: Massachusetts - Cops increasingly denying requests to hold illegals

Jack Encarnacao Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Federal immigration officials have been increasingly blown off by Boston-area authorities when they ask that illegals in police custody be detained for possible deportations, according to new U.S. data.

The pushback from the Hub area bucks a national trend that has seen a sharp drop in the number of detainer requests by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that have been denied by local law enforcement.

The data, obtained from ICE by the Herald, shows the Boston ICE office — which covers all of New England — saw 59 of its requests to hold on to arrested immigrants denied last year. That’s up from 56 in 2015 and just 18 in 2014.

Meanwhile, the denial rate of ICE detainers nationally has plummeted, from 10,701 in 2014 and 8,546 in 2015 to 2,008 last year.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, said Boston’s detainer denial rate is particularly disturbing after ICE decided to expressly focus on immigrants with criminal records.

“They’re really boiling it down to worst of the worst,” Vaughan said, “and if they’re rejecting even those detainers, you have to ask yourself what public safety risk they are creating.”

A Herald special report in September revealed that Massachusetts deported the lowest percentage of illegal aliens of any state in the nation last year — and had the third-highest rate of granting asylum. The state’s immigration court deported just 26.9 percent of illegals who came before it, the lowest average rate in the U.S. — and well below the national average of 46.4 percent.

The increase in Boston-area ICE denials coincides with the enactment of sanctuary policies in many cities that shield noncriminal immigrants from deportation, as well as state court decisions deeming that suspects cannot be held without bail just because ICE has issued a civil detainer request for them.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who’s proposed using inmates to build a border wall and said his office always complies with ICE detainer requests, said brushing off ICE creates a damaging gulf among law enforcement agencies, local and national.

“It would completely go against the grain of what I believe we ought to be doing ... which is supporting one another with resources, fulfilling the request when another agency identifies that this person is of concern based on what they see,” Hodgson said.

ICE considers a detainer request “denied” whenever immigrants they ask be held are released before agents can pick them up.

Boston Police say their hands are tied, insisting that bail commissioners are the ones who make decisions on whether someone with an ICE detainer is released.

In August, Commissioner William B. Evans re-issued a memo originally sent by his predecessor reminding officers that “all prisoners who are subject to ICE Detainers must receive equal access to bail commissioners, which includes notifying said prisoner of his or her right to seek bail.”

The memo requires officers to notify bail commissioners of any received ICE detainers upon their arrival at a police station.

“The department is in the process of determining how many ICE detainer requests were received in 2016,” BPD spokesman Michael McCarthy said yesterday.

Recent state court decisions — starting in 2014 and ending in a May ruling by a single Supreme Judicial Court justice — found arrested immigrants who post bail can’t be held simply because they have ICE detainers on them, as they could with an active criminal warrant.

Bail commissioners and magistrates can, however, weigh an ICE detainer in deciding what bail amount to set. Commissioners rely heavily on information provided them by police in setting bail.

ICE sidestepped the question of why Boston’s compliance rate has bucked the trend.

An agency spokesman said in a statement that detainer denials are down nationally because its “Priority Enforcement Program” — which focuses ICE actions on convicted criminals and threats to public safety and national security — has built trust with local authorities.

“With the implementation of the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) in July 2015, many law enforcement agencies, including some large jurisdictions, are now once again cooperating with ICE,” spokesman Shawn Neudauer said.

Amy Grunder of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition said the Boston-area stance on ICE detainers has built needed trust between local police and immigrant communities.

“I think it indicates good policing, that’s what I think it indicates,” Grunder said. “Because police resources are being used to protect communities, and that’s what the police are for. They’re not for immigration enforcement.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/loc..._hold_illegals

Sheriff Hodgson disturbed by lack of cooperation between police, feds over illegal immigrants

Kristen Giddings Tuesday, January 10, 2017


Credit: Nancy Lane
Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who has volunteered to assist President-elect Donald J. Trump in building his proposed wall along the Mexican border, said he finds it disturbing that police departments are increasingly denying requests to hold illegal immigrants.

“Well it's really troubling and it's confusing I think, to me, that we would be seeing anyone denying the efforts to cooperate with our federal, state, local partners together,” said Hodgson in an interview on Herald Radio's "Morning Meeting" show with Jaclyn Cashman and Hillary Chabot. “It just completely defies everything we learned following 9/11. If anything, we understood that we needed to do more to share resources, to share intelligence.”

The Herald reported Tuesday that federal immigration officials been increasingly blown off by Boston-area authorities when they ask that illegal immigrants in custody be detained for possible deportations, according to new U.S. data.

Hodgson criticized the idea of mayors setting up sanctuary cities that are “basically in violation of federal law.”

“I mean that's what people are looking for," Hodgson said. "The ones who really want to bring harm to our country are looking for a place where they can lay low and hide.

“We can't create a special class of people who are going to be forgiven of disobeying the laws here while the rest of us, including the legal residents, are expected to comply with our laws.”

Stating his concern for the Bay State, Hodgson said a border agent from San Diego had once told him that the word among illegal immigrants crossing the border into California is to “go to Massachusetts, because you can lay low there, That's the place to go, nobody will bother you.”

“So that's a border agent picking up the phone calling me after he sees an article to tell me what they're hearing out there in San Diego," Hodgson said. "And that ought to alarm everybody in Massachusetts."

Hodgson recently announced he would take volunteer prisoners to help build Trump's proposed wall, although he has not heard back from the Trump administration.

He also said that he believes that Trump's Attorney General nominee, Alabama U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, will be confirmed.

“I know Senator Sessions, I have worked with Senator Sessions," he said. "And I got to tell you something, that man is a honest, decent, hardworking patriot that really and truly wants to help America get to a better place. He is very very serious about his job as a U.S. senator. I know he is going to be very very serious about making sure that his role as Attorney General will be one that not only the Trump Administration will be very very proud of, but people of America will be proud of.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/loc...en_police_feds

Massachusetts is a Sanctuary state, we are loaded with illegal aliens and law enforcement and state government ignore the problem. Welfare is extremely easy to get in this state which encourages even more to come here. This state has to be forced to work with the Federal government with regards to immigration laws and deportation. Illegal aliens arrested in this state are just set free to break more laws instead of being deported. That is why so many people are leaving the state they are sick of it, myself included.

Massachusetts police officers need to be more worried about the interests and lives of their citizens than refugees, immigrants and illegal aliens. There will be more elections and I don't think most US citizens like "policing" to favor criminals from other countries over the laws in place to protect citizens.

by JOHN BINDER
15 Jan 2017
Boston, MA

The instances of law enforcement officials ignoring federal immigration detainers that would keep criminal illegal immigrants in custody is on the rise in Massachusetts.

In a bombshell report by the Boston Herald, a review of the statistics reveals the increasing instances where local police in the Boston-area simply defy the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s detainers for illegal immigrants has vastly increased through the over the past few years.

The data, obtained from ICE by the Herald, shows the Boston ICE office, which covers all of New England, saw 59 of its requests to hold arrested immigrants denied last year. That’s up from 56 in 2015 and just 18 in 2014.

Meanwhile, the denial rate of ICE detainers nationally has plummeted, from 10,701 in 2014 and 8,546 in 2015 to 2,008 last year.

In 2016, the Herald revealed in a report that Massachusetts had deported the least number of illegal immigrants out of every state in the US, with just 26.9 percent of illegal immigrants being deported.

Compare that percentage with the national average of illegal immigrants who are deported out of the country, 46.4 percent.

The Herald says the denial to detain illegal immigrants until ICE can take custody has partly been due to the growing number of regions in the state that call themselves ‘sanctuary cities’ and shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration law.

The increase in Boston-area ICE denials coincides with the enactment of sanctuary policies in many cities that shield noncriminal immigrants from deportation, as well as state court decisions deeming that suspects cannot be held without bail just because ICE has issued a civil detainer request for them.

But, not every law enforcement agency in Massachusetts is on-board with the pro-illegal immigration trend.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said that by local authorities ignoring detainers on illegal immigrants from ICE, they are breaking the long-held tradition of cooperation between local and federal officials.

“It would completely go against the grain of what I believe we ought to be doing,” Hodgson told the Herald. “Which is supporting one another with resources, fulfilling the request when another agency identifies that this person is of concern based on what they see.”

Hodgson has most recently said he would help build a border wall, which President-elect Donald Trump has promised to begin building after his inauguration, using inmates from his county’s jail, as Breitbart News reported.

The sanctuary city game and local authorities’ refusal to work with federal immigration agencies could soon be coming to an end with Trump’s oath of office just around the corner. Trump has repeatedly said that under his administration, sanctuary cities will be stripped of federal funding if they continue to ignore federal immigration law.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/...rs-increasing/

Illegal aliens are supposed to be detained and deported. That is the law. Our laws are supposed to enforced especially ones that secure our borders, protect our jobs, wages, lives, resources and sovereignty which is what US immigration laws do.