Illegal Immigration Battle May Be Waged Behind Bars (WMGH-Denver, CO)

Illegal Immigration Battle May Be Waged Behind Bars
Arapahoe County Wants To Enforce Immigration Law

POSTED: 3:43 pm MDT October 25, 2008

DENVER -- Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson has asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to train his jail employees so they can enforce federal immigration laws.

Deportation is not one of those potential new duties.

"We would conduct the investigation, we would complete the paperwork, and then we would present the information to the ICE agents in Denver and, eventually, to the U.S. Attorney's Office," Robinson said.

Two weeks ago, Robinson sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security requesting, as dozens of other law enforcement groups across the country have, four-weeks of special training.

Normally, that training takes place in South Carolina.

Robinson has asked for ICE to conduct the instruction in Colorado and hopes to have other sheriff's interested.

"This is where I stand and I'm hoping that my colleague sheriffs will join me," Robinson said.

He's also standing in direct opposition to his own, long-held views.

As many other agencies have said many times in recent years, they believe the illegal immigration issue must be handled by the federal government.

Washington has clearly been slow to act, which is part of the reason Robinson is acting now.

Incidents like Sept. 4 are also a factor. That was the day a suspected illegal immigrant named Francis Hernandez was involved in a horrible traffic accident in Aurora, leaving three dead.

One of them was a boy eating ice cream inside a Baskin-Robbins near Havana and Mississippi.

Hernandez was no stranger to law enforcement, having been pulled over several times prior to the deadly crash, including stops in Aurora and Arapahoe County.

ICE agents said his information was never entered into their databases.

Police and sheriff's deputies have said Hernandez claimed to be from California.

ICE spokespeople said he's here illegally and from Guatemala.

"Certainly high-profile cases amplify the need to move forward on this, " Robinson said.

After careful deliberation, Robinson said he did an about-face, deciding his local agency could help with this complex and sometimes deadly problem.

Once trained, jail staffers could access restricted federal computers to check on the immigration status of inmates where there is reason to question their residency.

"If we don't know their status, we are legally bound to release them on bond. When we release them on a bond, they could go back into the community, continue victimizing our community and still be illegal immigrants," Robinson said.

While praising the efforts of local agents, the sheriff said the workload is often too much for Denver-area ICE staffers to handle.

Federal Immigration reforms from 1996 allow federal-local partnerships, often referred to by the code number of 287 (g).

Currently, the Colorado State Patrol and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office have taken advantage of the training and have 287 (g) authority.

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said in September that his trained staffers ran 500 inmates through federal computer records, finding more than 100 suspected illegals.

They also found 300 legal residents and Maketa believes the time saved getting the information themselves, has helped deputies shave 11 days off the average inmate's stay at the jail.