Thread: Sheriff's document dispute going to Raleigh

Sheriff's document dispute going to Raleigh
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May 16, 2009 - 9:10 PM
Robert Boyer / Times-News

Officials with Alamance County and the ACLU are turning to a state attorney to help them sort out what the county should charge for copies of documents related to 287(g), the federal/local illegal immigration enforcement program.

County Attorney Clyde Albright says the bill for unbinding, rebinding and photographing two jail log books totals $1,750.

In addition, Albright said a roughly 1-foot-tall stack of paperwork, which he guesses to be around 2,000 pages, will cost another $500, or 25 cents per page to copy.

But Katy Parker, legal director of the American Civil Liberties of North Carolina, said that's too much. "There's got to be some alternative to taking apart the books," she said.

Parker said 10 cents a page is a "reasonable" amount, and that her organization shouldn't be penalized for Sheriff Terry Johnson's "antiquated" record-keeping.

The two attorneys will meet Tuesday in Raleigh with Sam Byasse, the general counsel for the state's chief information officer.

State law requires agencies to charge only for "actual costs" but does provide an exception for a "special service charge" for requests that "require extensive use of information technology resources or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance by personnel of the agency involved," among other things.

Parker says the records fall under the actual cost-provision; Albright says the exception applies.

The 287(g) program, named for the section of federal law that created it in 1996, trains and deputizes local lawmen and jailers as federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The ACLU requested the documents in February, around the same time the civil rights organization and the UNC School of Law issued a study accusing the Alamance County Sheriff's Office and other Tar Heel agencies with 287(g) of using the program to profile Hispanics and "purge towns and cities of ‘unwelcome' immigrants," among other things.

Sheriff Johnson has repeatedly denied those and other allegations regarding the program, which he says his department follows to the letter of the law.

Tuesday's mediation follows Parker's review in April of roughly 40,000 documents the sheriff's office compiled in response to the ACLU's request.

Johnson has said the ACLU is unfairly targeting his agency and hasn't been clear in stating what it wants; Parker has countered the department only complied with the request after the ACLU threatened to file a lawsuit.

Parker said such documents "belong to the public" and should be available at "minimal or no cost."

The ACLU is pursuing mediation over the cost issue "on behalf of all citizens in North Carolina," she said.

www.thetimesnews.com

But Katy Parker, legal director of the American Civil Liberties of North Carolina, said that's too much. "There's got to be some alternative to taking apart the books," she said.





Well yeah, there is. Let's just take apart the ACLU and voila, problem solved.

See how easy it all is?

287(g) of using the program to profile Hispanics and "purge towns and cities of ‘unwelcome' immigrants," among other things.

Well, well, well, The ACLU got it right for once: Yes, we DO want to "purge towns and cities of 'unwelcome immigrants' ". And the problem with that is....?

Whatever would the ACLU do without their millions of Hispanic "victims"? Cease to have a purpose for existing? I can see why the ACLU desperately wants amnesty - to secure their jobs and their very identities as "civil rights advocates". They're a joke.

If they want to be Civil Right activists why don't they protect the American people as the American people are being descriminated against at every turn.