Thread: System makes it difficult to deport foreign criminals

System makes it difficult to deport foreign criminals


By CHARLIE REED
charlie.reed@scripps.com
June 14, 2007
STUART — If better communication existed between local authorities and federal immigration officials, Daniel Martinez might still be alive.
The man accused of stabbing Martinez to death last month during a fight, Roberto Pedraza Carrillo, could have been deported in 2004 had authorities in Martin County contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they arrested and convicted him of aggravated battery against a pregnant woman.


Advertisement
Instead, Carrillo, who illegally immigrated here from Mexico and had been deported in 1996, served time in the Martin County Jail, slipping through the cracks of the system set up to detect criminals who are in the country illegally. He told deputies in 2004 that he was from Mexico, according to the arrest report.
On Tuesday, ICE issued a detainment order for Carrillo, also known as Alberto Pedraza Carrillo, after the Martin County Sheriff's Office reported his murder charge to the Law Enforcement Support Center, a Vermont-based office of ICE that responds to electronic queries from law enforcement agencies about suspected undocumented immigrants.

Carrillo's battery charge in 2004 likely was not serious enough for the Sheriff's Office to contact ICE. Typically, the office only alerts ICE about foreign nationals or those suspected of immigrating illegally in cases involving charges of murder, human trafficking or crimes against children, spokeswoman Jenell Atlas said.

"We do it on a case-by-case basis," Atlas said. "But we don't normally verify immigration status. If you commit a crime, we're going to arrest you regardless of whether you're illegal or not."

Atlas said the office's immigration reporting policy is not tied to the added cost of investigation but rather to what appears to local law enforcement to be a lack of response from ICE.

"There are many times we call (ICE) and nothing happens," she said.

In 2006, ICE issued 840 detainment orders as a result of the 94,330 inquiries from Florida agencies through the Law Enforcement Support Center, according to federal records.

Local jurisdictions are not required to report suspected immigration violations although some local law enforcement agencies throughout the country have undergone special federal training to do so.

"Departments either choose to use us or not," ICE spokesman Michael Gilhooly said. "We can't make them contact us. It's a voluntary system."

ICE is the largest investigative branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The agency combines the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the former U.S. Customs Service.

Although ICE is a relatively new agency, the disconnect between local authorities and federal immigration officials has been "an ongoing issue," said David Martin, a University of Virginia law professor and general counsel for the INS from 1995 to 1998.

"It's been a sore point for some time," he said.

"A lot of times it's a sensitive local issue," Martin said. "Police sometimes don't want the connection to (the Department of Homeland Security) because they're afraid people won't report crimes for fear of being deported."

In other cases, federal and local officials are just "resistant" to crossing agency lines, he said.

Either way, Martin said, the biggest problem with the voluntary system of reporting immigration violations "is that it's not tied to any funding."

Linda Bach, the felony prosecutor involved in the 2004 battery case against Carrillo, said she often used to contact INS — replaced by ICE in 2003 — when she suspected defendants were in the country illegally.

But that changed after 9/11, Bach said, when federal immigration officials became focused on terrorism.

"They just don't have the time now," she said.

"We can point (undocumented immigrants) out, but we don't have the authority to do anything," she said. "It's frustrating."

Meanwhile, Carrillo is being held in the Martin County Jail without bond.

If convicted, he will likely serve his sentence here before being deported to Mexico, joining the other 4,965 undocumented immigrants serving time in Florida's state prisons.



http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/ar ... 37,00.html

"There are many times we call (ICE) and nothing happens," she said.

That's because up until now, ICE hasn't had to worry about ENFORCING THE LAW. Obviously this is a new concept for both ICE and DC.