ICE raids mostly nab non-criminals, files show (Houston Chronicle)

ICE raids mostly nab non-criminals, files show
Program was supposed to target dangerous fugitives

By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 4, 2009, 11:04PM

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement program designed to target the most dangerous immigration fugitives has swept up mostly non-criminals in recent years, newly released documents show.

The National Fugitive Operations Program, created in 2003 with the mission of locating and deporting fugitives who are national security or public safety threats, resulted in the arrests of more than 62,000 people through the end of the 2007 fiscal year.

Of those arrests, roughly 18 percent involved fugitive immigrants with criminal records, according to a report released Wednesday by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington D.C., which obtained the data from ICE. Roughly 48 percent of the arrests involved immigrants with outstanding deportation orders and no criminal record. The remaining 34 percent were simply identified during a raid and arrested on suspicion of being in the country illegally, the report said.

ICE officials have said the fugitive operations program gives top priority to cases involving violent fugitives, including gang members and child sex offenders. A series of internal directives, however, shows the agency steeply increased an annual arrest quota for the fugitive teams in 2006, while relaxing a requirement that 75 percent of targets have criminal records.

The result, critics say, is that ICE shifted focus and went after “low-hanging fruit,” people who were easy to arrest, instead of the most violent offenders.

“In spite of the fact that the program supposedly prioritized its targets based on their dangerousness, the program primarily arrested the easiest targets,” said Margot Mendelson, co-author of the MPI report.

According to the report, the percentage of arrests involving fugitive immigrants with criminal records declined from 23 percent in 2003 to 9 percent in 2007.

ICE spokesman Greg Palmore said ICE has significantly increased arrests of criminal fugitives in recent months. So far this fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1, ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program recorded 12,114 arrests nationally, although he was unable to provide a specific number of arrests for fugitive immigrants with criminal records.

Arrest record in Houston
The national findings in the MPI report mirror local trends.

Of the 1,587 arrests made by Houston’s fugitive operations teams in the 2008 fiscal year, 17 percent were for people with criminal convictions, said ICE officials.

Palmore defended the agency’s arrests of non-criminals swept up by the fugitive teams.

“While ICE prioritizes our efforts by targeting fugitives who have demonstrated a threat to national security or public safety, we have a clear mandate to pursue all immigration fugitives — even those with no documented criminal history in the United States,” Palmore said.

The program is one of ICE’s fastest-growing initiatives, said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with MPI and a former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner.

Over the past five years, program funding has totaled more than $625 million.

The memos detailing ICE’s internal quotas and field directives were obtained in January by an instructor and students at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Peter L. Markowitz, director of Cardozo’s Immigration Justice Clinic, said the agency’s memos provide context for the decline in arrests of fugitive immigrants with criminal records. An ICE memo from early 2004 required no less than 75 percent of fugitive operations targets be classified as “criminal aliens.”

Peter L. Markowitz, director of Cardozo’s Immigration Justice Clinic, said the agency’s memos provide context for the decline in arrests of fugitive immigrants with criminal records. An ICE memo from early 2004 required no less than 75 percent of fugitive operations targets be classified as “criminal aliens.”

That requirement was removed in 2006, while the fugitive operation teams’ annual quotas were increased to 1,000 arrests per year, up from 125. For the first time, the teams were allowed to count any arrest — not just those of fugitives and criminals — toward their totals.

The change allowed ICE to report a record number of “fugitive arrests” — more than 15,000 in fiscal year 2006, up from nearly 8,000 the previous year. The number for 2007 looked even more impressive, with 30,407 arrests, although MPI’s data showed that only 9 percent involved fugitive immigrants with criminal records.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently issued a directive that puts the removal of immigrants convicted of crimes at the top of the agency’s priority list.