Feds detain fewer suspected illegal immigrants from Irving jail

12:00 AM CDT on Monday, June 14, 2010
By BRANDON FORMBY
bformby@dallasnews.com

Federal immigration authorities in October stopped detaining from Irving's jail about half the number of suspected illegal immigrants than they have typically held since round-the-clock citizenship status checks began there in 2007.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and Irving police disagree on the cause of the drop. Irving police say that federal officials are no longer detaining scores of suspected illegal immigrants who only have class C misdemeanor charges.

"Nothing changed in terms of our practice," Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said. "We still share information with everyone who is arrested in Irving."

Immigration officials say they continue to place immigration holds on suspected illegal immigrants accused of low-level crime. They suggest Irving jailers are the ones who have made an alteration.

"We haven't stopped taking any sort of referrals at all," said Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman.

Irving has turned more than 5,600 people over for deportation since the city began using the Criminal Alien Program in 2006. The program allows federal authorities to check the immigration status of inmates in the city's jail.

Irving officials brag that with the program, they have turned over more suspected illegal immigrants than any other city in the country. Demonstrations supporting and opposing CAP helped the city become the backdrop for America's discussion on illegal immigration nearly three years ago.

More recently, Arizona has become ground zero for national discussion on the issue. A new law there will soon require police to inquire about immigration status in some instances.

Meanwhile, voters and lawmakers during this midterm election year have been debating border security and whether Congress will – or should – try to tackle massive immigration changes. Despite the shifted spotlight and their own inexplicable drop in deportees, Irving officials still brag about their use of CAP.

"When you hear that about Arizona, it's a bunch of nonsense," Mayor Herbert Gears said at a recent City Council meeting. "If they'd do what Irving does, there'd be no problem in the United States."


No longer interested?

Rusnok said the agency will take only people charged with more serious crimes if resources such as beds, time or manpower are scarce. But, he said, there have not been the kind of long-term resource shortages to explain the sudden and sustained drop in detainers in Irving.

Boyd maintains that his jailers have said that ICE no longer seems able or interested in taking suspected illegal immigrants charged with the lowest level of crimes. Boyd said ICE has taken about 82 percent fewer Irving people charged only with class C misdemeanors this year compared with last year.

While the number of CAP detainers placed on arrestees in Irving's jail has gone down recently, they've gone up overall in North Texas and across the nation. The number of charging documents on Irving arrestees fell 7.2 percent from the 2008 to the 2009 fiscal years. During that same time period, the number of CAP charging documents issued in North Texas and Oklahoma increased 12.6 percent. Nationally, the number of detainers placed on suspected illegal immigrants in jails increased 5.3 percent.

At the height of Irving and ICE's partnership in 2007, an average of more than 200 immigration holds a month were placed on people in Irving's jail.

Then the Mexican consul in September 2007 warned Hispanics to stay out of Irving. For the next two years, an average 145 immigration detainers were placed on inmates each month. Since October 2009, though, the monthly average has been about 70 detainers a month.

Jorge Rivera couldn't help but notice the drop. The president of Irving's chapter of LULAC said officials told him one reason for the decline was that ICE turned away referrals when the agency didn't have the resources to handle new detainees.

"ICE told me sometimes they have not any beds for a lot of people," Rivera said.


'Strong evidence'

The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity last year released a report that found "strong evidence" that Irving officers racially profiled Hispanics in order to process them through CAP. Boyd disputed the study. The report from the institute, which is part of the law school at the University of California-Berkeley, was released the month before last year's drop in detainers.

Boyd, who has disputed the study's finding, said it had nothing to do with the decline in immigration holds. He said the study also has not changed the average number of inmates or the crimes for which arrestees are held.

Boyd said officers do their jobs without trying to manipulate the program's outcome.

"We don't try to make the numbers go up, we don't try to make the numbers go down," he said. "They are what they are. I don't spend a lot of time worrying if the numbers are up or the numbers are down."

Boyd said that's part of the reason he can't explain a one-time spike in detainers placed on inmates in March.

"It's not like we had more arrests that caused that," he said. "I don't know why it was up. It kind of goes back to what I was talking about; the numbers are what they are."

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