Sheriff's office won't resist deportation program

Some law officers nationwide say illegal immigrant effort is flawed.

Posted: Thursday, May 26, 2011 12:00 am
By PATRICK MALONE | pmalone@chieftain.com

DENVER — A tide of backlash nationally against the federal Secure Communities program has not deterred the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office from plans to participate in it.

Two sheriffs from other states expressed doubts Wednesday about participating in the program because they worry it is snaring low-level offenders and deporting people whose criminal cases have not been adjudicated.

They join the governor of Illinois and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in questioning whether Secure Communities is accomplishing its objectives or doing more harm than good.

The Pueblo sheriff’s office sees little difference between Secure Communities and its current practice of providing inmates’ fingerprints to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which in turn forwards them to federal agencies, according to Capt. Dave Lucero.

He said the fingerprint comparison does little to affect the jail. Of the 606 inmates held there on Wednesday, just two were being detained on immigration holds.

Secure Communities creates a computer pipeline for jails to send fingerprints of people booked there to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI.

The program’s aim is to target for deportation those who have committed the most serious crimes, such as rape, murder and felony drug offenses. But the Los Angeles Times reported last week that only about 35 percent of those who have been deported to date fit that description.

One-fourth of the deportations associated with Secure Communities so far have involved people awaiting resolution of their cases who have not been convicted, according to Bridget Kessler of Benjamin Cardoza School of Law.

“It’s a flawed program,â€