Thread: Ut: Undocumented Offenders Released when ICE Doesn't Show

Comments are being left at the source link.
~~

Undocumented Offenders Released when ICE Doesn't Show
May 23, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

ICE Agency Shortfall Leaves State in the Lurch
(KCPW News) Lawmakers want Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to report back to the Immigration Interim Committee this summer with more information about the number of undocumented immigrants released from Utah jails. Shurtleff says often the understaffed Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency can't pick up the offenders, so many are processed in a matter of hours and released.

"There was obviously some discussion during the session about, well, maybe the state does need to step up, or build or purchase a holding facility. In other words, talking about Oxbow," Shurtleff says. "And then we could hold them there as long as it took. And then we wouldn't have to wait for ICE to come pick them up. We could hold them longer, but you would have the bed space available. In that sense of resources, the state might be able to do something. And not just step back and say, until ICE steps up there's no way we can keep these people."



Senate Bill 81 includes a provision requiring Utah law enforcement agents to be cross-deputized as ICE agents. Shurtleff maintains this would be problematic. One reason for this is the lack of a holding facility for undocumented immigrants. Also a concern is removing law enforcement from their regular patrol duties in order to do the job of ICE agents. However, this could be a moot point. Immigration Interim Committee Co-Chairman Representative Brad Dee says the waiting list for ICE training is several years long.

http://www.kcpw.org/article/6034

The same goes for when police call ICE when they encounter illegals. In one city in Broward County officers routinely come accross them and call ICE. When they don't show up because they claim they are busy, the police have to either take them to the Border Patrol office in a neighboring city or if they have too many or get urgent calls, they have to release them. In one case they had between 12 to 15 illegals they caught while on a domestic violence call and ICE told the officers to let them go as they were too busy to come pick them up. I hear this complaint all the time from many officers.

That's ridiculous; it's obvious we need more detention centers then.

We need more people to pick illegals up as well. They need to go back to the old ways. I have a friend whose job used to be to make sure illegals and those deported got home. He would accompany them on a plane to what ever country they were from and make sure they got off the plane.