States, locals swamp immigration program
By Daniel C. Vock, Stateline.org Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 13, 2008



States and cities that want to speed up deportations of criminals and suspects who are illegal immigrants by using a popular but controversial federal program face waiting up to three years to join the enforcement effort, because the federal government can’t keep up with the demand.

Political pressure for stricter policing of illegal immigration has propelled the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s 287(g) initiative from a little-noticed experiment two years ago to one of the hottest ideas for local and state officials to deal with immigration, as broader federal efforts languish.

Law enforcement ranks first as an issue in immigration-related legislation introduced on the state level as of March 2008, according to an April report of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

At the start of 2007, only eight police agencies took part in the 287(g) program; now a total of 47 police agencies in 17 states participate, with 90 more waiting to sign up. To date, more than 50,000 people have been deported or have been marked for deportation under the 287(g) program, according to ICE. More than half of those were processed since October.

But ICE is short of money to expand the program, which reimburses local police agencies for holding prisoners, pays for a five-week training course for participating officers and provides the technology to allow those police to access federal immigration databases.

The agency also foots the bill for housing and removing the immigrants once they leave the local jail.

ICE’s total budget for the program is roughly $26.2 million, an agency spokesman said.

To deal with the sudden interest, ICE officials are getting pickier about what local plans they will support, while encouraging police agencies to re-focus their enforcement efforts.

ICE now offers two options for police agencies seeking the 287(g) program. They can apply to the program to train their jail guards or other correction officers to screen arrestees and other inmates to make sure they’re in the country legally, or they can set up task forces that deal with a certain kind of crime — such as gang activity or document forgery — that often involves illegal immigrants.

The agency is moving away from an earlier model, used in places such as Alabama and Colorado, that trained state highway patrols to check immigration status during traffic stops, said James Wright, who works on ICE’s state and local government coordination.

The 287(g) program was always supposed to focus on criminals here illegally, rather than the larger group of 12 million undocumented immigrants thought to be in the United States. ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said most local agencies agree with ICE that beefing up immigration enforcement in local jails “is the best use of resources, by both federal and local law enforcement agencies.â€