Thread: WI: Dane County Jail to hug Illegal Aliens

Dane County Jail May Change Illegal Immigrant Policy
Reporter: Zac Schultz
Email Address: zschultz@nbc15.com

3 comments

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Immigration Policy Changes
VIDEO: http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/14427982.html

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Madison, WI: Dane County Jail officials are thinking about not telling Immigration and Customs officials when they arrest certain illegal immigrants.

That's because officials are worried about a severe backlog in the court system; if every illegal immigrant is worried jail time will lead to automatic deportation.

Anthony Delyea is a public defender. The court pays him to represent the poorest defendants. By his count he handles nearly 250 cases a year, and more than a 100 involve illegal immigrants.

Delyea says 98% of his cases never see a courtroom, as his clients take plea deals for reduced sentences. That is changing. "I have three cases that are going to go to trial that would have settled before."

The change occurred at the federal level. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is now working to deport illegals convicted of even the smallest crime. "If you enter a plea to something as relatively minor as operating after revocation and you have to serve any jail time you might be deported," says Delyea.

Now the only way to avoid jail time and possible deportation is to go to trial, even with a longshot case. Delyea says trials take time, and they are expensive- both for him and the court system. "When you start thinking about how much that's going to cost it's almost terrifying to me."

"It really surfaced about a couple months ago," says Peter Munoz, the Director of Centro Hispano. He says members of the illegal immigrant community are scared, and they may stop reporting crimes or skip court dates to avoid deportation. "It's creating this tremendous problem, where ICE is actually acting immediately, placing those holds and deporting people."

The topic came up at a meeting of the Dane County Criminal Justice Group. Sheriff Dave Mahoney says for more than three decades they have notified ICE when an illegal immigrant is booked in the jail-usually about 20 times a month.

Most of the time ICE would only put holds on a few. But last fall ICE put detainers on 60% of illegal immigrants in the jail. "When we inquired as to October and November why there was this spike, their response was, we had a significant increase in staff, which resulted in our ability to respond," says Mahoney.

The Sheriff and the District Attorney have agreed to examine the policy to notify ICE about illegal immigrants in the jail.

They say one possibility is to only notifiy ICE about those charged with the most serious offenses.
http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/14427982.html

DUH!!! Isn't the objective to DEPORT illegal aliens??? Who are these nimrods in Wisconsin?