Atlanta Georgia May 6 2008
By: Rick McCann
Ntl. Assoc. Private Officers
www.privateofficer.com
There is a law on the books, a federal law called the 287g. This law was originally designed by it’s writers to crack down on illegal immigrants and to enhance the powers of local police and sheriff departments throughout our country.
The program under which illegal immigrants are being arrested in many big cities and small towns is run under the auspices of what is known as 287(g) — a nondescript term for one of the fastest-growing policing actions in the country.
Based on a 1996 law that permits partnerships between police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it has ballooned in the past year — including a major presence in Nashville Tennessee, Charlotte North Carolina and Atlanta Georgia.
Under the program, city and state officials may take on some immigration law enforcement functions, a prerogative formerly left to the federal government. The law empowers state and local officials to identify illegal immigrants among the suspects they’ve nabbed in various offenses and forward them to deportation proceedings.
More than half of the 47 participating authorities nationwide jumped on board last year and 80 more are in waiting, having made a request to join. The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department just outside of Nashville say that they also have been approved to participate in the program along with law enforcement agencies in Georgia, Florida, South and North Carolina and many other states.
Nashville joined after a notorious case in which an illegal immigrant named Gustavo Garcia Reyes was arrested in 2006 in the wake of an alcohol-induced wreck that killed a Mt. Juliet couple. At the time, Reyes had already been deported once and had at least 14 arrests, including several DUIs, in Nashville. The case spurred the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office to start enforcing immigration laws more strictly. At the time, the sheriff’s office said it would be targeting people like Reyes — people with long and serious criminal histories.
But hispanic attorneys and community activists say that now the law is being used to enforce immigrations in simple traffic violations which are escalating into arrests and eventually deportation, especially in the State of Tennessee. One of the reasons is that illegal immigrants can no longer legally drive in Tennessee, which opens the door to arrest when they are stopped. So when an officer leans in and asks for license and registration, the real drama begins for the illegal immigrant.
In Ramiro Aguirre’s four years in Nashville, he maintained steady work in construction, his wife worked at McDonald’s and they had two children while living in Nashville.
His sister, Elsa Aguirre, recalled a hard life in Mexico and how she and her father moved to California and then to Nashville eight years ago. Back in Mexico, her brother had married and reached out for help from his father in Nashville. Then he, too, moved here and was working construction — a common avenue for illegal immigrants — when he was arrested.
“There are some Latinos who don’t behave,” Elsa said. “But we are good people. We go to church, and we struggle to make a living.”
Nashville’s program is modeled on one in Mecklenburg County, N.C., where Charlotte is the county seat. Davidson County is now among the model programs in the country, said Jim Pendergraph, the former Mecklenburg County sheriff who now oversees local immigration efforts for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C.
“The intention of the program, from my perspective, is to identify people in your community who are breaking the law, committing crimes, who are a danger to the community,” he said
But immigration lawyer Mario Ramos said many of the immigrants who come to Nashville and other metropolitan cities are essentially economic refugees.
He acknowledges that some who ask him for help entered or stayed in the country without authorization. But he said they are otherwise law-abiding, hard-working people who are fleeing home countries where the average income is often less than $1,000 a year.
“They take their chances,” Ramos said. “And I think if they were paying $100 an hour in Canada, there are a lot of Americans who might do that, too.”
Driver’s license bureaus and Georgia roads are also becoming riskier places for illegal immigrants. About two dozen driver’s license investigators, state troopers and GBI agents have also completed federal training to determine a suspect’s legal status in the United States and, if necessary, start deportation proceedings.
Until now, the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office has been the only police agency in Georgia to train with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cobb began deporting inmates from its jail in July.
The newly trained officers — three driver’s license fraud investigators, 14 state troopers and five Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents are on the job and looking for those who have entered the country illegally.
In addition, this year’s Georgia budget provides $537,860 to hire 10 new driver’s license fraud investigators for centers across the state.The GBI already has its three-man team in place and has started investigations, said GBI director Vernon Keenan. The state budget provided $201,996 for the positions.
Two other agents who took the ICE training will be assigned to a homeland security unit separate from driver’s license issues, Keenan said.Counterfeiters use expensive equipment to make IDs and charge a high price, he said. “They’re making everything. Immigration papers, birth certificates, Social Security cards. You name it.”Fraud investigators at the state’s driver’s license offices see a lot of fake Social Security cards and federal I-94 documents, said Rick Miller, director of investigations for the Department of Driver Services .
The I-94, known as the Arrival-Departure Record, is a white card issued to visitors to the U.S. showing how long they can legally stay. Georgia issues licenses to visitors for the time period their I-94s are valid.Many legal tourists become illegal residents when they overstay the time allotted on the I-94.Agents with driver services intend to apply the letter of the law to those with fake documents, which is a felony, Miller said.”They’ve got a fraudulent document, they’ve committed a felony, and they’re going to jail,” he said.
While they’re at it, agents can determine legal status and initiate deportation proceedings, Miller said.Three driver’s license fraud investigators with deportation powers are on the job and already building cases.
The department also will hire 10 more fraud investigators, for a total of 21, who will work out of driver’s license offices across the state.
It’s not clear if they will take deportation training.About 70 percent of the document fraud cases driver services made last quarter were immigration related. Investigators see other instances of fraud, such as under-age people who try to appear older so they can buy alcohol, Miller said.
The State Patrol has trained 14 troopers, but for now, most will call into a federal hotline to obtain immigration information on a suspect because they won’t be near jails with federal computers. When they take suspects to jails on criminal charges, troopers can place a hold on suspects for possible immigration violations.Many immigrants who have come here illegally admit that it was against the US laws to cross the border the way that they did but since relocating to the US they live law abiding life and pay their taxes and are viable members of their community.
As more arrests of illegal immagrints are being made, jails to hold them are being built in places like Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Some say it’s all about money and politics as the jails get placed in communities with politicians who speak the loudest against the illegals. Others say it’s law enforcement doing what they are hired to do, enforcing the laws on the books.
Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas said it’s up to the arresting officer to decide when an arrest is appropriate.
State law dictates that a physical arrest isn’t mandatory on many minor crimes, such as license offenses or trespassing. But Metro policy leaves it to the officer to determine if the offender is likely to show up for court. With identification, a legitimate address and a clean history of appearing in court, the chances are much better that a citation would be issued and the person would not have to go to jail for booking.
“A tremendous amount of thought goes into” that decision, Serpas said.
But the policing philosophy that Serpas has undertaken since he took charge of Metro police in 2004 — traffic stops catch criminals — may be playing a role in the sheer number of immigrants detained in Nashville.
The sheriff’s office screened and reported more illegal immigrants to ICE in its first year in the program than any place east of Arizona, a major gateway for immigrants from Mexico and points south. And traffic stops have been the primary means in catching and flagging illegal immigrants.
Serpas said his officers average 5,000 traffic stops per week, more than twice the average number in cities of similar size. He said that the stops make police more visible, and that accidents with injuries have declined in the city each year since he took the helm.
One in every four arrests last year started with a traffic stop, he said.
“People across the United States use vehicles to transport themselves, and criminals use cars to transport themselves as well,” Serpas said.
The 200,000-plus traffic stops last year led to arrests about 8 percent of the time. Stops made on Hispanic drivers — about 5 percent of the total — led to arrests and searches 29 percent of the time.
The high number is due in part to the fact that illegal immigrants can no longer legally drive in the state. A program that previously allowed any immigrant to apply for a one-year Tennessee driving certificate was changed in 2006. Now, only those who can prove their legal status can get a certificate.
About 11,000 of the permits are still valid.
In 2006, when the politics of immigration reform was reaching a fever pitch, the Major Cities Chiefs Association said getting involved with the federal law would damage the fragile trust between local police and immigrants.
Serpas, a member of that organization, said he has no such concerns.
“No, I’m not seeing it,” Serpas said. “We have not detected any falloff in people being willing to participate and cooperate with the Police Department any more so than what is normal in any community.”
He credits the El Protector program, which he established in 2004, as the reason. But the policemen who operate the program say they don’t have all the answers to the questions fielded most often from the Hispanic community.
Two Hispanic officers are considered liaisons and work in educational and community-based roles to encourage trust as part of the program. Officer Rafael Fernandez works in the Hermitage precinct, and Officer Juan Borges is assigned to the very diverse South precinct.
Borges, a Puerto Rican native, said there’s “no telling” how much crime is going unreported by immigrant victims who fear contact with any uniform. He thinks his program makes a difference, but he has heard more than once about apartment tenants who report to management that they’ve been robbed, but don’t call police.
“It’s obvious that a lot of people in the community are concerned, and mainly the concern is the fact that they don’t know exactly how it works or who is operating the program,” Borges said. “It presents a challenge in letting people know the difference between what the sheriff’s office and the police department do.”
One of the most common questions he fields is this: What will happen to people who are caught driving without a license?
Borges said he’s not completely clear on how the process works, either. He has not yet met with anyone from the sheriff’s office to learn more about the program.
He acknowledges it could help with public safety if immigrants knew they were not likely to be deported for reporting a crime.
“We haven’t called (the sheriff) yet, but we’re going to call to see if we can have a meeting with whoever is in charge of the program so that we can better understand it,” Borges said.
Borges said he stresses the importance of keeping proof of identity and residence to show to police, but his main pieces of advice fall into the following categories: learning to speak English, following the state’s laws and trying to become legal citizens.
“That way, they will avoid a lot of these issues,” Borges said.
Illegal immigrants also face being rounded up as they stand to wait for someone to pick them up and use them as laborers.. At least 100 of Nashville’s federal detainees have been sent to deportation proceedings while presumably seeking work as day laborers. Officers charge them with loitering, trespassing or impeding traffic. All minor offenses but enough to bring them before a judge where they are more likely than not to be found guilty and then herded to jail to await the hand over to ICE for deportation.
Hispanic advocates say that the laws were constructed to rid the country of violent repeat offenders, gang members and the most serious offenders. Instead it’s being used to target anyone who looks latino and to deport anyone who doesn’t have a green card or U.S. citizenship. It’s power are too broad and its definition too loose said one latino attorney who helps those caught in the trap in Georgia.
For now, police and sheriff agencies are rolling full steam ahead using the 287g law as a net to catch whoever they will and many are being snared in it.Whether the application of the law is good or bad, the jury is still out on that. Only time will tell said a Tennessee officer.
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