Thread: NJ:Cracking Down On Immigration Violations

• Jersey cracking down on immigration violations
  Other states watch partnership with feds after Newark killings

Monday, February 25, 2008
BY BRIAN DONOHUE
Star-Ledger Staff


Luis Barrios Quiroz, an illegal immigrant working as a restaurant cook, was stopped by police last October driving 62 mph in Hunterdon County where the speed limit was 40.

When the Lambertville police officer checked Quiroz's valid Mexican driver's license, he also found fake Social Security and green cards -- tools of the trade for immigrants who lack legal working papers.



On Oct. 18, Quiroz, 27, pleaded guilty to presenting false documents and was sentenced in January to probation by a state Superior Court judge.

A year ago, Quiroz likely would have walked out of the courtroom and simply gone back to his job flipping burgers.

This time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting in the courtroom to take Quiroz back to Mexico. He was deported in January.

Following a directive issued Aug. 24 by state Attorney General Anne Milgram, police, prosecutors and federal immigration officials worked together on the Quiroz case, allowing ICE agents to detain him as soon as the criminal justice system let him go.

Milgram's order -- considered one of the most sweeping policies in the nation -- requires state and local officers to notify federal authorities when they have reason to believe a suspect is in the country illegally.

Six months after the order was issued, interviews with county jail wardens, prosecutors, local police and federal immigration officials reveal the policy has transformed a long-dysfunctional chain of communication into a busy partnership.

In the four-month period from October 2007 to January 2008, police in New Jersey contacted ICE's Law Enforcement Support Center in Vermont -- the main point of contact for such immigration background checks -- 6,023 times.

That compares with just 3,135 checks in the same period a year earlier.

"It's light years ahead of where it was," said Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor Ben Barlyn. "If you're asking, are more people being deported? The answer is yes. The order itself forged a tighter relationship between federal authorities and local police."
The number of people charged with immigration violations also has risen.



In August, Newark ICE officers placed detainers -- a notice to local jailers not to release the suspect without notifying ICE -- on 56 people referred to them by local police and law enforcement. The month after Milgram's order, that number shot up to 259, and has averaged 233 detainers a month since. The number of people formally charged with immigration violations also has risen sharply.

"We don't have a crystal ball, we can't tell you how many murders have been stopped or how many serious crimes have been stopped by us grabbing these people," said Scott Weber, Newark field office director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal. "But there are a lot of people who have immigration holds who would not have had them before."


NEWARK KILLINGS THE SPARK

Milgram issued her guidelines in the wake of the execution-style slayings of four Newark college students last August, in which the principal suspect, Jose Carranza, was found to be an illegal immigrant out on bail after being charged with sexual assault of a minor.

The Newark killings stoked an already contentious national debate over the status of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants, especially what role, if any, local police and county jails should play in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Weber says ICE officials in other states are closely tracking New Jersey's statewide policy. But attorneys general in other states generally don't have the power to set standards for local police, making it difficult to replicate elsewhere.

While the statistics show more criminal aliens being ensnared in the growing net, skeptics warn there is no way of knowing how many people are still falling through the cracks. Until, at least, they commit more crimes.

A 2006 audit by the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General found the agency would need to hire 1,008 additional officers to ensure all deportable criminals are removed from the United States.

Hudson County Prosecutor Ed DeFazio said he fears the federal government is still not giving local ICE offices enough money and manpower to deport all the criminal aliens arrested by New Jersey police.


Last month, for example, ICE offices in Vermont and Newark received a total of 1,937 referrals from local law enforcement in New Jersey. But ICE took formal action -- either by issuing a detainer or formally charging the suspect with immigration violations -- in only 741 cases.

"We have some degree of optimism, but it's still a situation where many serious offenders are not having the federal process begun against them," DeFazio said.


Milgram's directive specifically prohibits police from questioning crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status. But immigrant advocates say it has nonetheless heightened fear among immigrants that a call to the police could get them deported and therefore may allow some crimes to go unreported.

A case such as that of Quiroz, in which he was picked up for carrying the type of false documents that can be found in the pocket of almost all illegal immigrants, also has fueled rumors and fear in immigrant communities that police are looking for people to deport.

"You have one guy, who while on bail committed three brutal murders," said Jonathan Kessous, the attorney who represented Quiroz, referring to the Newark murders. "How do we get from that to some poor schlep short-order cook who has a fake card so he can work and contribute to society? You're going to have to arrest half of New Brunswick."


BIG CHANGE IN LAW

The Quiroz case illustrates the difference in how cases are handled now versus just a few years ago.

Jim Hurlihey, assistant prosecutor in Cape May County, recalls the case of Juan Gutierrez, a Colombian illegal immigrant arrested in 2006 for drunken driving and possession of cocaine. ICE was contacted, but prosecutors say they were told the federal officials had no interest in Gutierrez. He was sentenced to pre-trial intervention, a program that results in dismissal of charges, and later obtained legal immigration status, prosecutors say.

"Over the years it's become an inside joke that unless you have a boatload, they're not interested in coming and getting them," said Hurlihey.

Weber, ICE's head of detention and removal in Newark, disputes that description, saying his agency is still struggling to overcome the reputation of its embattled predecessor, the now defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

That perception is still fueled by the fact that, even now, in most cases, immigration agents do not take immediate action when local police report an illegal immigrant in custody.

But Weber said the process takes time. When a suspect is arrested, Weber said the information is passed on to investigators in Newark, who often track the suspect until the criminal case is over. By waiting, Weber added, ICE may be more successful in getting the suspect deported. Last month, his office formally charged 364 people referred by local police with immigration violations, far more than the Vermont office.

Weber says this system works far better now than in the old days when ICE agents had to visit the jail each week and look at the list of inmates to determine if someone was illegal.

By the time they got there, the immigrants, like Carranza, the accused Newark schoolyard murderer, often already were free on bail.

"When we get this early in the process it gives us time," Weber said. "When law enforcement communicates, good things happen."



http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf ... xml&coll=1

These deportations are all well and good however until ICE picks up on the theory of "Chain Deportation" these criminals will always have a reason to illegally return to America.

When one of these criminal invaders gets arrested his home situation needs to be investigated.
Every time they find an illegal family in the shadows they also need deported,

This removes the reason they would return to the scene of their crimes.

Cost too much to go after the whole family?

Lets look at this.............Luis Barrios Quiroz looses his job flipping burgers, He was paid cash under the table,

Now "Joe" is flipping the burgers, Getting paid $3 hr more and paying taxes.

So here we have gained on our tax base.

Luis had an Illegal wife and 5 anchors at home.

Savings in the next six months from welfare benefits they will no longer receive will equal $x

Now also Joe is working and he also has gone off the food stamp and assistance train............Again money saved

When Joe"s wife has to go to the emergency room that bill is picked up by the insurance that Joe has at work instead of Luis Barrios Quiroz walking off into the night...........The hospital does not have to close now !!!

This list could go on and on,

In the end how expensive would it be to really be to take the whole family?

Wake up people