E-mails show ICE's presence considered threat (San Antonio Express-News)

E-mails show ICE's presence considered threat
By Veronica Flores-Paniagua
Updated 09:11 a.m., Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Immigration lawyers have been aware for some time that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are allowed into the city-run Detention Center at Magistrate Court to sweep for illegal immigrants. But beyond that small group, most in San Antonio are unaware of the practice.

Presumably, ICE is targeting detainees with its Criminal Alien Program, especially those who've committed violent or drug crimes.

You won't find me quibbling with the effort to root out the criminal element, even as questions persist about the effectiveness of this approach. Where things get sticky for me, as they apparently have for city officials, according to e-mails obtained by the Express-News, is how the sweeps also have picked up illegal immigrants whose offenses might be as minor as municipal warrants for unpaid traffic tickets.

The ripple effects on the community are profound: a workplace may suddenly be without its employee and a family without its principal breadwinner. These aren't ICE's concerns. But they are for a city whose mayor and chambers of commerce regard the contributions of illegal immigrants as economic assets.

The Express-News obtained more than 100 pages of documents — mostly e-mails — in an open records request for correspondence since 2009 between city staff, and between city staff and ICE regarding the federal agency's activities in city facilities.

The documents reveal a deliberate effort to stall ICE's attempts to grow its presence at the Detention Center. And they seem to show city staff walking a political tightrope, outwardly appearing to be cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts while simultaneously trying to keep ICE at arm's length.

It's unclear what or who is directing staffers' actions. Assistant City Manager Erik Walsh directed me to the Municipal Court's top administrator, Presiding Judge John Bull. In the city's organizational chart, the Detention Center is a Municipal Court concern. Bull explained that Detention Center Marshal Rumaldo Abonce sets the facility's policies and procedures. Abonce didn't return my call. A city official close to the Detention Center told me most staffers are uncomfortable with what they view as bullying by the feds. That's in line with at least two e-mail exchanges among city staff that frame ICE's presence as a threat.

“We had another problem with folks paying for their tickets only to be taken by ICE,” Municipal Court Legal Administrator Kristi Blust wrote in a March 9, 2010, e-mail to Abonce. “Can someone please find out why this is happening?”

Another exchange a month later from Detention Center Manager Sharon Brown to various Detention Center staffers laid out the facility's practice for handling detainees who've been tagged by ICE. “If (ICE is) not present, we do not hold any person with a detainer or ICE hold written on the blue release form, who is just here on municipal charges.”

By June, ICE officials raised a flag.

“While we appreciate all of the cooperation we receive from the City Magistrate Office,” an agent wrote, “we are experiencing quite a few people being released from the Magistrate Office after ICE Detainers have been lodged.”

Noting that federal officials “understand that the city is not a holding facility for ICE,” the agent further complained that ICE on several occasions had responded to notifications from the Detention Center that people had been processed and were ready for pick up, only to find them already released before agents could make the 20-to-30 minute drive to the Magistrate Court downtown.

The question is: Why are city staffers going to such lengths to resist ICE's encroachment?

And what does ICE think about all this?

“ICE remains committed to working alongside with state and local law enforcement partners to enhance our communication, training and outreach,” the agency said in a statement. “ICE is focused on sensible, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes dangerous criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities.”

City Attorney Michael Bernard recently told me that, while the city would be “loathe” to tell the federal government that its agents can't come in to municipal facilities, doing so would be within the city's purview. For now, at least.

But who would want to own that political landmine?