Thread: VA: Beach police will ask about immigration status in more..

E-mails seem to back Beach chief's claims about immigration rules
By JON FRANK, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 5, 2007
Last updated: 12:09 AM


Jacocks asked other local chiefs of police about their dealings with federal immigration officials and got backing from two of them. The Virginian-Pilot file photo

VIRGINIA BEACH - In 2005, Virginia Beach allowed its police officers to detain illegal immigrants arrested on minor offenses so they could be deported.

Later that year, Police Chief Jake Jacocks Jr. changed the policy - because, he said, federal immigration officials said they were only interested in deporting illegals charged with serious crimes.

Had the policy been left in place, the illegal immigrant charged in a March car crash that killed two Beach teens would likely have been jailed last year after being arrested for public drunkenness in Virginia Beach and DUI in Chesapeake.

"If we'd known it two years ago, we would have been doing it," Jacocks said Thursday.

The police chief resurrected the 2005 policy this week after critics accused him and Mayor Meyera Oberndorf of creating a sanctuary for illegal residents.

The controversy erupted after the deaths of Alison Kunhardt, 17, and Tessa Tranchant, 16, who w ere rammed by a car driven by Alfredo Ramos. Ramos, who is in the country illegally from Mexico, has been charged with aggravated involuntary manslaughter. He remains in jail.

A representative of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday said the agency always wants to know when police arrest illegal immigrants and take them into custody, regardless of the type of crime.

On Thursday, Jacocks said ICE officials have changed their story, originally saying they did not want to be notified when illegal immigrants are arrested on minor charges, but now saying they do.

"They have changed because of political pressure," he said.

"What I take exception to is them coming out and saying that I was wrong. That is simply not the case."

Jacocks said his claims are backed up by a series of e-mails in April to and from other top cops, and e-mails that he sent to Beach city administrators.

The Virginian-Pilot obtained the e-mails through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The e-mails came after Jacocks met with ICE Special Agent Mike Netherland on April 23. At that meeting, according to an e-mail Jacocks sent, "he indicated that last year his office was involved in the deportation of illegal immigrants... with the vast majority of them being involved only in misdemeanors. "

At the meeting, officials also said if Virginia Beach police had called them for any reason, regardless of the crime, they would have come.

The controversy has drawn the attention of Fox TV personality Bill O'Reilly, who briefly made Virginia Beach ground zero in the national immigration debate.

In last month's e-mail correspondence, Jacocks acknowledged that he was in the middle of a "firestorm."

"What a ride," Jacocks claimed at the end of one message.

In other e-mails, he called the April 23 meeting with ICE officials "stunning" and "shocking," claiming that it represented a "180-degree shift" in the position taken by the agency before the immigration controversy erupted.

In an e-mail to local police chiefs after the ICE meeting, Jacocks pleaded for help.

"I desperately need to hear from each of you ASAP whether my assessment of your past experiences is accurate or not," he wrote. "And whether or not you had heard previously that ICE would not respond to misdemeanors, as stated yesterday."

Two chiefs responded, both supporting Jacocks' recollections.

"Our past experience with ICE or INS has been no active response to illegals," wrote Chief Richard A. Justice of Chesapeake.

Justice wrote that he suspected ICE wa s running for cover by claiming it has never avoided local calls for help with illegal immigrants.

"Sounds like the political/public heat is on and they are responding with the correct political response," Justice said in the message.

Chief C.R. Jordan Jr. of Hampton was more succinct in his support of Jacocks. "I agree," Jordan wrote.

Jacocks announced at a press conference Tuesday that he would scrap the Beach immigration policy. He said a new policy would go into effect immediately.

The new policy requires Beach police to alert ICE every time they charge an illegal immigrant with a misdemeanor that results in a physical arrest and a trip to the magistrate.

ICE will then flag the defendant for eventual deportation by issuing a detention order.

At this week's press conference, Jacocks said he tried to protect ICE from criticism by claiming that it was a "miscommunication" that caused him to formulate a "don't-ask-don't- tell" approach to illegal immigrants.

He said he was trying to avoid pointing fingers to protect his department's future relationship with federal authorities.

"That is why I wanted to stay away from this," the chief said. "We have to work together."

Jacocks said he would never have scrapped the city's old immigration policy without the new information from ICE. He also said his current policy would have been in place two years ago if ICE's position then had been the same as now.

"If ICE had not told me they would come regardless of the charge, we would not have changed our policy," he said.

Police will still turn a blind eye to the immigration status of people who come forward to report crimes or who are witnesses to crimes, the chief said.

Jacocks admitted that he is worried about how news of the revised policy will affect the immigrant community, many of whom do not speak English.

"We need to depend on the leaders in the Hispanic community to get the word out," Jacocks said.

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.c ... 090&tref=y

Jacocks admitted that he is worried about how news of the revised policy will affect the immigrant community, many of whom do not speak English.

This idiot still doesn't get it: the immigrant community won't be affected at all. Why would they be? This new policy deals with illegal aliens NOT immigrants.