Thread: SC State officials want better tracking of IAs in prisons

State officials want better tracking of illegal immigrants in prisons
By Tim Smith • STAFF WRITER • June 21, 2008

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina's prisons hold 369 illegal immigrants serving sentences for killing, raping, robbing and other offenses, a population that has nearly doubled in the past five years, according to state prison officials.

Officials say they may not be the only illegals in the prisons because the system relies mostly on inmates to tell them their immigration status when they are admitted, raising questions about whose job it is to determine their status and what happens when they're freed after serving their sentences.

Inmates who are processed into the system are asked if they are born in another country, said Josh Gelinas, a spokesman for the prison system. Those who say they were or who don't speak English are referred to federal immigration officials, who then verify their citizenship.

Officials also use a national crime database to see if any incoming prisoner is wanted by federal immigration authorities.

"The way we handle self-reporting now is it's passed on to (federal) Immigration and Customs Enforcement," he said. "It's their responsibility to verify the true status of the self reporting of the inmate."

The significance of knowing who is illegal in the prison system is that unless federal officials are told an inmate is illegal, they may never pick the prisoner up at the end of their sentence to deport the inmate. So drug dealers, thieves, robbers and killers who might not be known to be illegal would then be released back into South Carolina communities.

The 369 illegal immigrants are spread among more than 24,000 inmates in the 28 prison-system, which prison officials have complained is severely underfunded.

Gelinas said while cost would be a factor in verifying every prisoner, the system also does not have the database nor the expertise to verify the citizenship of every inmate.

"It's a system of flags," he said. "We do feel certain the 369 are all the illegals. There remains the possibility there are exceptions."

Many local jails and detention centers also do not verify each prisoner, officials said, either because they have not applied to participate in a federal program to train staff on how to do it or because they are on the federal waiting list for such training. Greenville County is among the local detention centers that rely on inmates to self-report their legal status because the facility is on the waiting list.

Mary Lu Rogers, chief of auxiliary services for the North Carolina Division of Prisons, said officials there also rely somewhat on self reporting, though they also flag inmates who raise suspicions, such as those who have a thick accent or have difficulty with English. All such cases are referred to federal immigration agents, she said, who regularly visit the state's eight prison reception centers to interview suspected aliens.

"If they have a southern accent and say they were born in Georgia we probably are not going to report them," she said. "So there is a downside. Everything is a self-report."

She said North Carolina officials decided not to use the federal government's program for identifying illegals among inmates because it would require placing too many staff in more than a month of training and they did not have staff to replace them while they were gone.

Sen. Jim Ritchie, a Spartanburg Republican who helped guide a recently enacted immigration law through the S.C. Senate, said he was unaware the prison system relies on inmates' reporting to know who is illegal.

He said the comprehensive law passed by the Legislature in May does not address the issue of the state's prison system verifying the status of its prisoners.

Gelinas said prison officials have looked at the new law and have no plans to change the way they collect information on illegals.

That surprised some lawmakers and others.

"We'll fix that," said Sen. Mike Fair of Greenville, chairman of the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee. "I'm surprised it's not being done already. My thought is that is an oversight."

Sen. Larry Martin of Pickens, another legislator who worked on the immigration legislation, said the state should do "more than a questionnaire we let the inmates fill out. That won't cut it."

Clemson City Councilwoman Margaret Thompson was more blunt about jails and prisons relying on prisoners to admit they are illegal immigrants:

"Do they not think they are going to lie to them?" she asked. "Hello! That's just nothing but stupid."

Thompson said the Pickens County Detention Center, where staff has received specialized immigration training from federal officials and are connected to a federal database, checks everyone who is arrested. Those who are found to be illegal and have completed their sentence are turned over to federal agents to be deported.

But she said she knows other jails do not verify their prisoners' status.

One of those is the Greenville County Detention Center, which also relies on self reporting, said James Dorriety, assistant county administrator for public safety. He said the county has applied to participate in the federal immigration training program but is on a waiting list.

Until then, he said, officials rely on what prisoners tell them. About 70 of the jail's 1,325 inmates are foreign-born, he said, although that does not mean all are illegal. He said federal immigration officials have placed a hold on eight of the foreign-born inmates.

Thompson said if all local jails and detention centers verified the status of everyone arrested, the prison system wouldn't have to check or ask the inmates. They could just look at the paperwork, she said.

That makes sense to Fair, who wants to know how many local jails now verify each prisoner.

Jeff Moore, executive director of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association, estimated about 9 to 10 percent of all local prisoners are illegal immigrants. But only a fraction of local inmates end up being convicted and sentenced to more than 91 days, he said, the point at which they transfer into state custody.

Officials had proposed building three regional detention centers in the state to help hold illegal inmates but the plan has been dropped, Moore said, for lack of funding.

More than 130 of the illegal immigrants identified in the state's prison system are serving sentences for dangerous drugs, according to prison data. Another 41 are doing time for killing someone, while 33 are in prison for sexual assault charges, 31 for assault, 14 for kidnapping and 27 for robbery or burglary, according to the records.

The prison system held 171 illegal residents in 2003, when 21 served time for homicide and 16 were sentenced for sexual assaults, the prison data shows.

The 369 illegals come from 33 countries, according to prison data, though most were born in Mexico.

Moore said while the new law requires local jails to do a better job of verifying the status of those arrested, inmates still have a right to be released on bond and may be released before officials determine whether they are illegal. He also believes the new law's crackdown on the employment of illegal workers will discourage illegal immigrants from coming to the state, ultimately reducing the flow of illegals into prisons..

"They are only here for jobs and, if the jobs go away, I believe they will as well," he said. "I don't think it's going to increase the population at the Department of Corrections at all."
http://www.greenvilleonline.com:80/apps ... 10323/1004

Reported statistics of illegal aliens in our prison system seem to vary between 20% to 33%, depending on area, state, federal or not, etc.

So any reported statistics of illegal aliens in prison, and even arrests are woefully extremely low because it appears that allmost exclusively, authorities are basing their determination of immigration status on self-reporting.

Great, that's comforting. I would say, thruthfulness is not a quality that illegal aliens possess in much quantity. Show me an illegal alien that isn't a liar and a cheat and I'll show you pigs can fly.

Added to Home PAge
http://www.alipac.us/article3292.html

Mary Lu Rogers, chief of auxiliary services for the North Carolina Division of Prisons, said officials there also rely somewhat on self reporting, though they also flag inmates who raise suspicions, such as those who have a thick accent or have difficulty with English. All such cases are referred to federal immigration agents, she said, who regularly visit the state's eight prison reception centers to interview suspected aliens.

"If they have a southern accent and say they were born in Georgia we probably are not going to report them," she said. "So there is a downside. Everything is a self-report."

She said North Carolina officials decided not to use the federal government's program for identifying illegals among inmates because it would require placing too many staff in more than a month of training and they did not have staff to replace them while they were gone.