Screening for jailed immigrants criticized

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Screening for jailed immigrants criticized
Study cites lack of oversight, poor training in federal program
A federal program to screen for illegal immigrants in local jails lacks oversight and is not targeting the most serious offenders, according to a highly critical U.S. Department of Homeland Security report issued Friday.
The program commonly known as 287(g) has been in use at the Harris County Jail since August 2008. The city of Houston was negotiating last year to start the program in its jails.
The report by the DHS Inspector General's Office also concluded that 287(g) does not adequately collect data to address civil rights violations and was inconsistently enforced in various jurisdictions. The investigation found that some law enforcement agencies are not following the program's requirements, including identifying and removing illegal immigrants “who pose a threat to public safety or a danger to the community.”
The report did find that the program identified 33,831 illegal immigrants who were removed from the United States by ICE during the 2008 fiscal year. This represented 9.5 percent of all ICE removals during that fiscal year.
Critics have long said 287(g), which trains law enforcement to identify and detain illegal immigrants in jails, is vulnerable to civil rights and racial profiling abuses.
Sheriff backs program
Immigration rights activist Cesar Espinosa, director of the nonprofit group Houston's America For All, said he hopes the report spurs the Harris County Sheriff's Office to abandon the enforcement effort. Espinosa said Harris County has detained more illegal immigrants than any other agency participating in the program.
“We would like to see some action taken on this in terms of maybe putting a stop to the program in general,” Espinosa said.
Harris County began using 287(g) at its county jails in August 2008 before Sheriff Adrian Garcia took office. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, during her campaign last year, promised to use the program in city jails, but backed off in February. Parker said the city has not yet decided to fund the initiative during a tight budget year.
The sheriff said he continues to support the program and takes “very seriously” what it intends to accomplish.
The fact that none of the concerns raised in the report have been brought to his attention by ICE on a local level, Garcia said, “gives me all the comfort that we are moving forward effectively with the program — that it is accomplishing the goals that we expected to accomplish.
“Some of the concerns … speak to why we are continuing to do the program in a very structured environment within the correctional environment, which is why we have no plans to expand it beyond that further,” Garcia said.
ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said his agency has strengthened training and deployed additional supervisors into the field to ensure greater oversight.
“Since the audit was conducted, ICE has fundamentally reformed the 287(g) program, strengthening public safety and ensuring consistency in immigration enforcement across the country by prioritizing the arrest and detention of criminal aliens,” Rusnok said.
‘The wrong perspective'
By June 2009, the Department of Homeland Security had 66 state and local law enforcement agencies in 23 states participating in the program. Funding for the program has increased from $5 million in the 2006 fiscal year to $68 million in the 2010 fiscal year.
Espinosa said the program has already had a detrimental effect on law officers' relations with the Hispanic community.
“We have people who are already fearful,” Espinosa said. “The community gets the wrong perspective and they think that all cops are going to be asking them for immigration papers on the street … even though we know that's not true and we try to explain it to people.”
Auditors said they observed several instances in which ICE and participating law enforcement agencies were not operating in compliance with the program. The report also suggested that the effort is not targeting the most serious offenders who are here in the U.S. illegally.
Percentage dispute
For instance, investigators obtained arrest information for a sample of 280 illegal immigrants identified through the program at four sites they visited. Based on the arresting offense, only 26 of the people arrested — about 9 percent — were considered among the highest risk because they were accused of the most serious crimes — major drug offenses or violent offenses.
“These results do not show that 287(g) resources have been focused on aliens who pose the greatest risk to the public,” the report states.
Garcia said only “a very small percentage” of those illegal immigrants being detained at the Harris County Jail have committed the most minor offenses, such as Class C misdemeanors. “The great majority” of those being detained under the program “are those that are committing more serious crimes,” he said.
The report makes 33 recommendations to strengthen management and oversight of the program — and ICE agreed with all but one of them.
Among those recommendations is better monitoring the program's impact on civil liberties.
peggy.ohare@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/6942084.html