Immigration checks expand at San Bernardino jails

Everyone booked into San Bernardino County jail will now face an immigration check as part of a new federal program that started in the county Tuesday.

Known as “Secure Communities,” the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program aims to identify and deport more dangerous criminals who are in the United States illegally.

Digitally scanned fingerprints are being submitted to a federal immigration database. Anyone booked who has had prior contact with immigration authorities could be investigated by ICE agents.

The effort began in late 2008 and is operating in more than 150 counties across the United States, including San Bernardino County, where it launched last month.

Immigrant advocates, alarmed by the rapid expansion of Secure Communities, say such programs operate with little public scrutiny and give officials discretion to target a broad range of people, including those who have not been charged with or convicted of a crime.

David Venturella, executive director of the Secure Communities management office in Washington, D.C., said by phone that the new system takes the burden off local law enforcement to identify potential illegal immigrants and places it back on ICE.

“This is not a program that casts a wide net. We’re focused on individuals who get arrested by local law enforcement,” he said. Some local jails already have deputies who are trained to enforce immigration law. But interviewing inmates to identify potential illegal immigrants is labor intensive, Venturella said. Those who are arrested often give false names and have no identification, making it difficult to determine their immigration status.

“By taking people’s biometrics, you make it impossible for people to use aliases,” said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice. “Fingerprints don’t lie.”

Arden Wiltshire, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said Secure Communities helps to catch deportable felons. Before, they might have “slipped through a loophole because we didn’t know who they were,” Wiltshire said.

“It’s going to be a benefit to the community,” she said.

LIMITED RESOURCES

Jails already are fingerprinting each person booked and running prints through an FBI criminal database. Now, the digitally scanned prints also will be sent to a Department of Homeland Security database that includes details about previous deportations and information on those who have applied for visas, permanent residency or citizenship. The database has information on some 110 million people, Venturella said.

When the system finds a fingerprint match, ICE agents investigate whether the person might be in the country illegally. If ICE agents choose to pursue deportation, they notify local law enforcement within a few hours.

ICE officials say they do not have the resources to pursue every case in which someone’s immigration status is suspect. They place priority on dangerous criminals, defined as those charged with or convicted of “major” drug offenses, national security crimes, and violent crimes such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

So while the system has the potential to identify many more undocumented immigrants, not all of them will land in immigration court.

Kice said that because the program is part of a broader strategy to increase the number of incarcerated and at-large illegal immigrants being identified and deported, she could not estimate the cost of Secure Communities. But she said from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2010, Congress appropriated $550 million to aid ICE efforts to identify and remove “criminal aliens.”

PROFILING concerns

Kice said Secure Communities should allay the racial-profiling concerns of some immigrant advocates because it does not single out certain individuals for immigration checks.

“The process is blind,” she said. “It overcomes a lot of concerns.”

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego County, where Secure Communities was launched last May, said that while the ICE review process might be blind, racial profiling can still come into play during arrests.

Although ICE officials emphasize criminality, Rios said there have been cases where people are found not guilty — or not charged at all — and immigration authorities continue efforts to deport them.

He said the most egregious case he has heard of involved a 17-year-old San Diego County boy who was accused of attempted murder but acquitted. Instead of being released to his family, he was turned over to ICE.

Rios said the boy was brought to the United States from Mexico as a baby and speaks little Spanish. His parents are not involved in his life and he has no connections in Mexico, Rios said. An aunt had agreed to take custody of the boy upon his release, but when she arrived to pick him up he was already in ICE custody.

After a few days of trying to locate him, the aunt contacted Rios’ organization. They learned he was transferred to an immigration detention facility in Illinois. Rios said they tried to help the aunt to find legal assistance there, but he does not know what became of the boy.

Kice pointed out that ICE does not make the final decision about whether someone will face deportation. In a case such as the one Rios described, she said, the individual would have the right to go before an immigration judge.

Rios said the recently passed Arizona law cracking down on undocumented immigrants casts ICE programs in a different light.

“It’s really interesting now with the debate about immigration in Arizona heating up,” he said.

By comparison, enforcement programs such as Secure Communities have been labeled as “OK,” Rios said. In his view, Rios said, “this is a more silent way to detain people. In some ways, these are much more dangerous because fewer people know about them.”

IMMIGRATION REVIEW

Fingerprints taken during booking at Inland jails are now being run through a federal database that contains records of deportations, visa applications and other immigration information. The federal program previously launched in neighboring counties.

San Diego County jails

(May 2009 launch through March 31)

Checks

106,681

Matches

15,852

Holds/arrests

6,028

Deportations

3,463

Los Angeles County jails

(August 2009 launch through March 31)

Checks

226,039

Matches

28,000

Holds/arrests

6,134

Deportations

4,199

Orange County jails

(March 10 launch through March 31)

Checks

3,110

Matches

566

Holds/arrests

171

Deportations

35

SOURCE: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

By SARAH BURGE
The Press-Enterprise

U.S. illegal immigration program costing San Bernardino County

San Bernardino County taxpayers have spent an estimated $54.5 million to jail illegal immigrants since 2004, and officials have been fighting an uphill battle to get the federal government to pick up more of that cost.

In all, federal officials have reimbursed the county about $6.7million since fiscal year 2004 through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.

County officials say the advent of the 287(g) program, which trains county jail deputies to identify illegal immigrants and hold them for immigration proceedings, gives local authorities their most precise picture yet of how many illegal immigrants are being held and how much it costs.

But with the tough economy, there’s little hope that local taxpayers will get off the hook any time soon.

“The Board of Supervisors believes it should be fully reimbursed by the federal government for the cost of incarcerating criminal illegal immigrants, and the county works very hard at the federal level to preserve and maximize the SCAAP,” county spokesman David Wert said.

In April 2008, the Board of Supervisors approved a resolution seeking additional reimbursement from the federal government for the costs of jailing illegal immigrants.

“San Bernardino County taxpayers shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden,” Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said at the time. “It’s an insult to our taxpayers to reimburse us for only (a fraction) of our cost for housing illegal aliens in our jails.”

The problem in securing additional reimbursement from the federal government, Wert said, boils down to the usual suspect: money.

The last three presidents have proposed either cutting or eliminating the reimbursement program as a way to help balance the federal budget.

The program also is under fire in the Senate, where the purse strings are controlled by members from small states that tend not to have serious immigration problems.

The Obama administration, in its budget submittal to Congress last year, asked Congress to eliminate SCAAP, Wert said.

“The county grasps the reality that very little funding is available, and given the political realities in Washington, the county is, in a sense, lucky the program exists at all,” Wert said.

Members of the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Rod Hoops have had personal conversations with the county’s congressional delegation in efforts to secure more federal money.

That’s in addition to the county’s lobbying efforts, which the county has done both individually and in conjunction with Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties, Wert said.

Last week, the Board of Supervisors voted to extend the 287(g) program for three years.

Under the agreement with U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement, nine San Bernardino County sheriff’s custody specialists screen inmates suspected of being in the country illegally. If it is determined that certain inmates are illegal immigrants, detainers are placed on them, and they are turned over to federal immigration officers once their criminal cases have concluded.

But some critics question whether the program is helping taxpayers or hurting them.

“It’s a burdensome cost to the local government,” said Suzanne Foster, policy committee chairwoman for the Justice for Immigrants Coalition of Inland Southern California. “ICE does provide initial training, but it does not fund the screening process, overtime hours, or any part of the housing of inmates. … It has been found all over the country to be quite burdensome to the local governments, costing taxpayers more than is necessary.”

Foster says the program encourages police officers to arrest greater numbers of illegal immigrants, leading to increased cost to taxpayers.

Indeed, the number of San Bernardino County jail inmates identified as illegal immigrants has grown nearly five-fold since 2004.

But it’s impossible to tell whether more illegal immigrants are being jailed or simply counted more precisely.

Last year, the inmate screening program was streamlined to enable custody specialists to screen inmates countywide via closed-circuit television. Since then, the numbers of inmates who have had detainer holds placed on them has increased dramatically, sheriff’s Lt. Rick Ells said.

“I’m not sure it’s cutting down on what we’re spending on housing the inmates, but we’re removing criminals from the streets, and that’s going to benefit the county,” he said.

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/07/2009 08:59:05 PM PST
http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_13740432

7 Inmates In West Valley Detention Center Have Swine Flu

Thursday, August 20th, 2009.
Issue 34, Volume 9.

California – West Valley Detention Center, a San Bernardino county jail that houses offenders waiting to go to court reported that 7 inmates are confirmed to have contracted the swine flu. At least a dozen have come down with flu like symptoms as of Saturday the 4th but only the 7 were confirmed to be swine flu as of Wednesday.

All inmates that had contact with the ones that caught swine flu were moved to a special unit where the ventilation system is isolated and will not circulate air to the rest of the jail. All 48 inmates who were quarantined in the housing unit known as Unit 8 were offered the Tamiflu medication to treat the swine flu. Out of the 48 only 47 took the medicine because one refused it.

The jail is taking all precautionary measures so they don’t have a jail outbreak on there hands. None of the staff in contact with the inmates have shown any signs of the swine flu.

Carjacking suspect escapes from Adelanto Detention Center

By PAUL LAROCCO
The Press-Enterprise

August 18, 2009

A suspect in a series of knifepoint carjackings escaped from a San Bernardino County jail early Tuesday by scaling the roof and apparently leaping off the prison grounds, officials said.

Joel Maldonado was reported missing from his assigned housing area at the sheriff’s Adelanto Detention Center shortly after midnight.

An extensive search of the jail and the surrounding area, aided by a helicopter, failed to locate the 25-year-old inmate, who remains at large, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Beavers.

“Obviously this is a real security issue,” Beavers said.

She declined to release details about how Maldonado gained access to the jail’s roof.

It is the first escape from the 700-bed jail, which opened under the sheriff’s jurisdiction in January 2006 and contains mostly dormitory-style housing.

The one-time private facility has been slated for a state-funded, $100-million expansion that would triple its capacity and modernize facilities. Budget constraints have put the project on hold.

Maldonado has been held at the High Desert jail since Jan. 22. He was arrested Dec. 3, 2008, in Ontario and initially lodged at the sheriff’s West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.

Ontario police had obtained a $1 million arrest warrant for Maldonado, alleging that he and another man used knives to kidnap, carjack, rob and assault several people in five incidents in November 2008 — three on the same day.

According to a criminal complaint filed at San Bernardino County Superior Court, Maldonado is charged with three counts of kidnapping for carjacking, four counts of second-degree robbery and single counts of assault with great bodily injury, attempted carjacking and assault with a deadly weapon.

“I don’t have evidence that they knew any of the victims,” said Deputy District Attorney Erica Gallegos. “I believe they were looking for easy targets.”

Maldonado has pleaded not guilty and was next scheduled to appear in court, along with the other defendant, on Tuesday to confirm a Sept. 3 preliminary hearing.

Though bail had been set at $1 million in the pending case, the suspect also was being detained without bail on a federal immigration hold to determine if he is in the country illegally, records show.

Maldonado is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds. He has black hair, brown eyes and a tattoo reading “Catracho” on his back. He has connections to Ontario, Rialto and San Bernardino.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call sheriff’s dispatchers at 760-245-4211 or WeTip at 800-782-7463.

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