Thread: SC: ICE program helps Lexington deputies identify, deport il

ICE program helps Lexington deputies identify, deport illegal immigrants

WIS-TV
February 21, 2011
LEXINGTON, SC

Deputies in Lexington County now have a way to verify a suspected illegal immigrant's status and send them on a plane back to their home countries.

The program is called the 287(g), and it has already helped deputies identify nearly 300 illegals and deport half of them.

A map of the countries from which Lexington County deputies have identified illegal immigrants includes China, Germany, Africa, South America and Mexico.

54 countries in all represent the homelands of the nearly 300 illegal immigrants Lexington County deputies Melissa Lyons and Kevin Farley have identified through ICE's 287G program. 287G gives the sheriff's office the power to identify illegal immigrants through fingerprints, and to start the process of deporting them.

"Fingerprinting a subject who has been identified as foreign-born," said Lyons.

The process starts after a suspected illegal is charged with a crime and booked into the detention center. ICE deputies run fingerprints through immigration's national database. It takes only minutes to get results.

"It will bring back their entire criminal history and possibly aliases," said Farley. "We have incidents where people give false names and determine what their real name is, other names that they've used by doing their fingerprints and we do that for every single subject that we think may be foreign-born."

The ICE reports are simple. Either the detainee has a criminal record or not.

The report shows if they've been arrested before and entered into ICE's criminal database. The fingerprints also show whether an illegal has been deported before. If so, re-entering the country is another crime.

The sheriff's office started the program in September, setting aside an entire unit to house detainees. ICE deputies have identified, on average, 60 illegal immigrants each month since then, an average of 15 a week.

"We are seeing what we thought to be true, that we're seeing more foreign-born illegals in our county committing crimes," said Sheriff James Metts, who says he looked into the program after his jail's booking logs started showing growing numbers of people deputies suspected of being in the country illegally.

Metts says the problem is a threat to the public, and deporting them is a top priority. "They were here illegally and they are now out of our county," said Metts. "They're not committing crimes against our citizens, nor are they costing our citizens money to house them in the Lexington County Detention Center."

In the past, officers could only rely on identifying detainees by the identification they handed over. Many times, officers say the documents were fake. With the 287g program, ice says those days are over.

"Fingerprints don't lie," said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzales. "If someone is booked into this facility and they say that they're someone else, those fingerprints are going to pop up and they're going to show the officers who exactly that person is."

The fingerprints carry with them the detainee's criminal charges and true identity forever, which allows law enforcement to know who they are if they ever enter the country again.

Once an illegal is identified and the deportation process starts, they'll stay at the Lexington County Detention Center until their court date comes up before a federal immigration judge.

Before an illegal is sent back to their home country, they must serve whatever prison term for the crimes they committed while in the country illegally. After that, the feds put them on a plane and send them home.

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14071146

Posted on Mon, Feb. 28, 2011
Lexington Co. jail screens inmates for illegal immigrants

6-month-old partnership with federal authorities has led to 134 deportations
By NOELLE PHILLIPS

Push pins dot a map on the wall at the Lexington County Detention Center, with the largest cluster sitting in Mexico.


But pins also stick in Germany, the Sudan, the Philippines and Morocco.


The pins represent the home countries of people booked into the Lexington County jail since September. That’s when Sheriff James Metts, who oversees the jail, signed an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that gives the sheriff authority to investigate the citizenship status of anyone booked into the facility.


Since the program began, detention center officers have identified 280 illegal immigrants, who have been placed in ICE custody, according to statistics released by the Sheriff’s Department. Of those, 134 have been deported.


The agreement between ICE and Lexington County allows Metts to quickly identify illegal immigrants and move them toward deportation. Illegal immigrants contribute to the county’s crime problem, Metts said, and he thinks they are part of the reason his jail is overcrowded.


“Just by being the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, without the database, equipment or training, we wouldn’t be able to do that,â€

A map of the countries from which Lexington County deputies have identified illegal immigrants includes China, Germany, Africa, South America and Mexico.

54 countries in all represent the homelands of the nearly 300 illegal immigrants Lexington County deputies Melissa Lyons and Kevin Farley have identified through ICE's 287G program.

well so much for the racial aspect and only latinos being targeted.