County jail to start 'more efficient way' to process illegal immigrants
Posted: Oct 06, 2009 11:11 PM CDT
Updated: Oct 06, 2009 11:16 PM CDT


NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - While the federal government tries to change the way illegal immigrants are deported, a local jail is grappling with how to better process those inmates.

The Charleston County Detention Center is the only jail facility in the state authorized to hold illegal immigrants who are being detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement.

In the current policy, booking officers have to ascertain if a detainee was born in a foreign country. If so, they have to send ICE an e-mail with the detainees' information.

ICE then investigates if the detainee is here legally. If they're not in the country legally, an ICE agent has to process them.

""They're going to stay here, go to court. If they get a prison sentence, they go to prison. When they complete the prison sentence then they would be deported. But nobody gets a ticket out of the country charged with crime just because you're an illegal alien," said Chief Deputy Mitch Lucas said.

But once the new jail opens in March 2010, the system will change, Lucas said.

Twelve booking officers will be trained to directly tap into an immigration database to see if any foreign born inmate is here illegally.

It's a more efficient process that will save everyone time, Lucas said.

If they find out a detainee is here illegally, ICE would have to process them and pay the county $55 every day they stay at the Charleston County Detention Center.

The cost to hold any inmate on a daily basis is $12, Lucas said.

Lucas, who has been the detention center's administrator for four years, said he has seen a steady rise in the number of illegal immigrants who end up in jail.

This reflects the growing illegal immigration problem around the country, he said.

It also emphasizes the fact that immigrants who were victimized and once scared to report crime because of their own immigration status are now reporting crime more often, Lucas added.

"Having access to these ICE databases will help us keep the jail safe by being able to classify people appropriately but also help us get the most violent types off the streets of Charleston and into the ICE system and hopefully deported," Lucas said.

Lucas admits holding these inmates doesn't help alleviate the overcrowding, which currently plagues the county detention center and forced the county to spend $100 million on a new facility, which is two-and-half times the size of the old jail.

The jail's main building was built to hold more than 660 inmates, but Tuesday's count was about 16,000.

Even though overcrowding is a problem, Lucas said Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon feels these detainees need to be held somewhere.

If they're illegal, they broke the law and need to be in jail, Lucas said.

Law enforcement shouldn't pick and choose who they hold in jail, he added.

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