County jails boost effort to identify illegal immigrant inmates (Inland Valley Daily Bulletin)

County jails boost effort to identify illegal immigrant inmates

Inmates face deportation
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Article Created: 05/11/2008 10:32:37 PM PDT

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is expanding its efforts to identify jail inmates who may be eligible for deportation.

Over 2006 and 2007, authorities at West Valley Detention Center have identified more than 4,100 inmates who could be subject to deportation, according to sheriff's statistics.

So far, the screening program has been limited to West Valley, the Rancho Cucamonga facility that is the county's largest jail. But that's set to change after county Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt allocated $100,000 under his control to acquire video conferencing technology that will allow specially trained jail employees at West Valley to interview inmates at other jails.

"One of the reasons for expanding this program is to assist the county in identifying the costs incurred in housing illegal alien criminals," Mitzelfelt spokesman David Zook said.

The money would expand the program to jails in San Bernardino, Barstow, Victorville and the Morongo Basin. Sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said the teleconferencing gear has not yet been installed.

Zook reported that the county spent $24 million last year to incarcerate illegal immigrants at West Valley.

County officials want the federal government to provide reimbursement for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants. Mitzelfelt's office has reported that Washington gave the county nearly $600,000 to cover those costs.

If an inmate is identified as someone who may have entered the United States illegally, that person is not instantly kicked out of the country.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said when jailers discover that an inmate could be eligible for deportation, that inmate has something called a detainer placed on his or her record.

A detainer tells authorities not to release that individual after their case is resolved.

Someone with a detainer may be convicted of a crime and have to serve time, but that wouldn't be the end of their legal problems, officials said. That inmate would be delivered to ICE custody for the commencement of deportation proceedings after the completion of their sentence.

Brian DeMore, acting director in charge of detention and removal activities at ICE's Los Angeles office, said the concept of remotely screening inmates to check on their immigration status is not unique to San Bernardino County.

Those kinds of screenings for inmates held within the federal Bureau of Prisons are all completed in Chicago, DeMore said.

ICE trains law enforcement officers and jailers who participate in locally based programs to identify deportable aliens. In California, the federal agency also works with sheriff's departments in Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange counties.

Cooperation between local agencies and ICE has resulted in more than 50,000 people across the United States being identified as being possibly subject to deportation, ICE reports.

As of late April, ICE had enforcement agreements with 47 state and local agencies and had received more than 90 training requests.

"I see the programs expanding," DeMore said.

Deporting criminals raises the issue of crime spreading across borders.

Geoff Thale, program director for the Washington office on Latin America, provided written remarks to Congress last June in which he maintained that reverse migration and deportation of MS-13 and 18th Street gang members from Los Angeles fueled gang problems in Central America.

Although those gangs have members in the United States and Latin America, Thale reported that they were primarily threats to local safety where they operate, but are not international criminal empires that dominate illicit activities like drug trafficking.

DeMore and Kice noted that ICE participated in an international conference on gangs that was held in March in Los Angeles and said U.S. authorities see an imperative to cooperate with foreign police agencies.

"There is a lot of back and forth with those street gangs, but that is something we all know," Kice said.