Doing More Time

It'll take years before county jails see space open up

Sunday, January 21, 2007

By SHARON McNARY
The Press-Enterprise

Even though Inland county jailers specially trained to enforce federal immigration laws have sent more than 2,000 inmates into deportation proceedings in the past year, the program has not met other goals, such as saving money and clearing jail space, county sheriffs said.

And after spending $1.5 million on the immigration programs, Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle and San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod said in separate interviews that they don't know yet if they are making progress toward another key goal: reducing repeat crimes by immigrants.

"Recidivism, we haven't been able to track that," said Penrod. He added that he intended to study results this month from the year-old program. "Do we have any (deportees) back for the second and third times?"

While officials in the two counties evaluate the programs, critics say local authorities do not have sufficient training to correctly and consistently apply complex immigration laws, and that people who are detained on immigration holds are less able to challenge their arrests or fight deportation.

"The stakes are high," said attorney Manuel Vargas, of the Immigrant Defense Project of the New York State Defenders Association. "It can result in people being unlawfully deprived of their liberty."

The Inland counties are among about a dozen counties and state law enforcement agencies participating in federal partnerships. The program, named 287(g) for a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, permits local agencies to enforce immigration laws under federal supervision.


William Reid, acting assistant director for the ICE Office of Investigations, says the program frees agents to focus on their duties.



Ed Crisostomo / The Press-Enterprise
William Reid, acting assistant director for the ICE Office of Investigations, says the program frees agents to focus on their duties.
Federal immigration agents have trained 17 Inland county jailers to investigate which inmates could be deported. Those who are undocumented immigrants, or whose visas have expired, could be removed from the country. Also, permanent legal residents could be forced to leave if convicted of certain crimes.

As the San Bernardino County program completes its first year and Riverside County marks its fifth month, the two counties' jailers are sending an average of 270 people per month into federal deportation proceedings where an immigration judge then decides if they might stay. The number of inmates actually deported because of the program is unavailable because it is not tracked separately from overall deportations, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

Despite the volume of potential deportees, the programs do not free significant numbers of beds in the two counties' overcrowded jails because county policies require immigrants to serve the same portion of their sentences as other inmates, the Riverside and San Bernardino county sheriffs said. Inmates sentences are not shortened just because they may face potential deportation, according to the counties' policy.

Both said they expected the greatest increase in jail beds to come years in the future, when many immigrants who are repeat offenders will have been deported to other countries.

Many Avoid Screening

All arrestees in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are asked by a booking officer to state their country of origin.

While all foreign-born inmates are eligible to be questioned about their immigration status, most are not questioned because jailers screen immigrants at only one large jail in each county.

Riverside County has five jails with 3,400 inmates, but just 1,000 are held where the screening is done -- Robert Presley Detention Center. At any given time, an estimated 330 inmates are believed to be undocumented immigrants. Correctional deputies question about 59 percent of those inmates each month, according to data provided by Sheriff's Lt. Joe McNamara.

San Bernardino County has four jails holding about 5,840 inmates, including 2,780 who are held at West Valley Detention Center, where screening is done. Of those, about 750 inmates are estimated to be undocumented immigrants. Sheriff's custody specialists question about 31 percent of those inmates each month, according to data provided by Lt. Frank Gonzales.

Riverside County Board of Supervisors Chairman John Tavaglione was surprised at the low number of foreign-born inmates being questioned. He'd like the program expanded to other county jails to increase the volume.

"We have to do a much better job in screening all of our arrestees," Tavaglione said.

The low numbers are due to the limited number of specially trained jailers and the federal computers and equipment used in the evolving programs, the two sheriffs said.

Despite the lack of savings, and the low percentage of inmates being questioned, Penrod and Doyle say they too would consider expanding the program because far more inmates are being screened for immigration violations than at any time since the 2001 terrorist attacks when federal authorities reduced their presence in Inland county jails. Also, more are being sent into federal custody for possible deportation.

Without the jail-based program to detect illegal immigrants and immigration law violators, they would leave jail by posting bail or promising to appear in court, Doyle said. But under federal immigration law, a person who is forced to leave the country via a deportation proceeding could face a federal felony charge of re-entering the country without permission.

"The whole goal isn't about saving money, it's about making sure that these people go back to their countries of origin," Doyle said.

Federal immigration enforcement officials say savings to local governments are a secondary reason for the partnership programs.

ICE is helped because the partnerships let local agencies take over a job previously done by federal immigration officers, freeing agents to focus on smugglers, document counterfeit rings, and large-scale employers of undocumented workers, said William Reid, acting assistant director for the national ICE Office of Investigations.

In public hearings, sheriff's officials sought approval of the screening program by describing the millions of dollars they spend jailing illegal immigrants -- about $12 million per year in San Bernardino County's West Valley Detention Center and about $5 million in all Riverside County jails.

During the April hearing, Riverside County supervisors Tavaglione, Marion Ashley and Bob Buster invoked the potential savings of identifying illegal immigrants in jail and sending them to deportation proceedings.

San Bernardino County Supervisor Paul Biane proposed the immigration-screening program in 2005 in order to free jail space and to get a greater share of the federal government's reimbursement of housing costs for undocumented immigrants.

However, participation has not yielded more federal reimbursement money, partly because of the long lead time necessary to receive the payments, which are based on the jails' count of illegal immigrants.

Doyle said he did not expect an increase in reimbursements because his county had maintained an accurate count over the past few years.

Penrod said he expected a significant increase this year because the immigrant screening process helped the county document the number of immigration law violators in custody. The accuracy of the counting faltered when federal immigration officers withdrew from much of the inmate-screening work in 2001.

The federal immigration service reorganized to concentrate on reducing the terrorism threat in 2001. A 2002 federal audit said immigration officers' presence in county jails in California was "minimal to nonexistent."

"Inmates who were undocumented workers and illegals were doing their time and then they were getting pretty much just kicked out of the jails into our community," Doyle said.

The San Bernardino and Riverside boards of supervisors approved the program amid growing demands that local governments do more to control illegal immigration.

U.S. Law, Local Crackdown

Bracing open the heavy green holding cell door with his foot, Riverside Sheriff's Department Correctional Deputy Adrian Valdivia addressed an inmate:

"I work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Sheriff's Department and I'm going to ask you some questions," Valdivia said in Spanish. "Where were you born?... What's your job?... Do you have immigration papers?... How did you cross into the United States?"

Valdivia, after checking a Mexican citizen's photo and fingerprints, concluded he was in the United States illegally. The man, who was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, was not charged but he was returned to Mexico.

Buster takes issue with using the program to interrogate minor offenders.

"If that's what it's being used for, then our own deputies are becoming immigration agents and we're funding the federal immigration" enforcement, Buster said. "The murderers, rapists and robbers are the ones we want deported, not starting out with somebody who sold an ounce of marijuana who's been here for 15 years and otherwise has a clear record."

San Bernardino and Riverside counties question foreign-born immigrants shortly after their arrests, whereas Los Angeles County limits the questioning to inmates who have been convicted of crimes.

Buster was assured in the April hearing that they would question the immigration status only of inmates who were convicted or had a high probability of conviction.

Doyle disagrees.

"He had contact with the criminal justice system, he did something to get arrested and hooked up and taken to jail," Doyle said.

Reach Sharon McNary at 951-368-9458 or smcnary@PE.com

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