Sheriff says pact makes Arizona law unnecessary

Almost 200 people are booked into the Clark County Detention Center in downtown Las Vegas on a typical day.

Most go through the standard booking process: providing vital statistics, surrendering personal belongings, getting fingerprinted and photographed.

But for 30 or so foreign-born people booked each day, there's an extra step.

A specially trained officer runs their names or fingerprints through a federal immigration database to determine whether they are in the country illegally and are eligible for potential deportation.

The officer then has the authority to place an "immigration detainer" on those who are found to be deportable, essentially allowing local law enforcement to hold them after they would otherwise be released so immigration officials can take custody of them.

It's called the "287 (g)" program, and it's one reason Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie says Nevada doesn't need an Arizona-style law targeting illegal immigrants.

The program "is enough for dealing with the criminal element we're focused on," Gillespie said Wednesday. "The challenges they face in Arizona are different than in Nevada, because Arizona is a border state. They are dealing with a violent, criminal element coming to and from the border."

Gillespie believes federal, not local, law enforcement should enforce immigration laws. But he understands the frustration that led Arizona last month to pass a law making it a state crime to be in the country without legal papers.

"We haven't dealt with the issue at the national level, and it's because we haven't that we are in the situation we are today," he said.

It was similar frustration that led Gillespie to support a partnership between the Metropolitan Police Department and federal officials that allows local corrections officers to begin deportation proceedings against immigration violators arrested on other charges. That partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, dubbed "287 (g)" after the corresponding section of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, went into effect in November 2008.

"It's not in the best interest of local law enforcement to continually take on the responsibilities of federal entities," the sheriff said. "But they weren't doing it and we needed to."

Civil rights leaders and others expressed concerns about the Las Vegas agreement similar to those they have about the Arizona law. Both target Hispanics, could lead to racial profiling and make people afraid to report crimes, said Maggie McLetchie, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

"They are similar in a lot of ways," she said. But McLetchie also pointed out an important difference between the two.

"The 287 (g) program is a jail-only enforcement program, while the Arizona law is a street-level program," she said.

Also, the 287 (g) program is operated hand-in-hand with ICE officials, while the Arizona law has drawn scrutiny from the Justice Department.

The Arizona law, scheduled to take effect this summer, directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the United States illegally.

An amendment to the law, signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, says police can question suspected illegal immigrants about their status only while enforcing some other law or ordinance.

Supporters say the law is necessary to protect Arizonans from crimes committed by illegal immigrants, and that the federal government has failed to enforce immigration laws. The state is home to an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants.

People nationwide protested the Arizona law's passage. Several federal lawsuits have been filed, and opponents are pushing for a boycott of Arizona.

Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that a majority of Americans support the law. In the poll, which was conducted April 28 through May 2 and with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, 51 percent of people said the Arizona law was "about right" in its approach to dealing with illegal immigration. Thirty-six percent said the law went too far, and 9 percent said it didn't go far enough.

Several local Republicans have said they would support an Arizona-style law in Nevada. U.S. Senate candidate and state Assemblyman Chad Christensen, R-Las Vegas, went so far as to request a special legislative session to pass such a law. Gov. Jim Gibbons, who has said immigration enforcement is a federal matter, rejected the request. Christensen now is trying to get a referendum on November's ballot.

An estimated 260,000 illegal immigrants live in Nevada, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Gillespie said he is closely monitoring the situation in Arizona, but believes the 287 (g) partnership is sufficient for his jurisdiction.

Previously, officers did not have the ability to check the immigration status of inmates and the sheriff's department had to rely on ICE officials to investigate and place detainers on potential immigration violators.

ICE "would periodically come down," Gillespie said. "But they would pick and choose. It wasn't an everyday thing."

"A lot of people would be out the door already before they (ICE) would come in," said Lt. Rich Forbus, who oversees the local program.

Now, Gillespie said, "We do a lot of paperwork, a lot of what I consider to be their (ICE officials') work, but they still make determinations on who they move through their processes and who they don't."

Gillespie has repeatedly emphasized that the partnership is meant to target violent criminals.

Since the partnership's inception, the Metropolitan Police Department has chosen not to refer to ICE more than 2,300 inmates found to be in the country illegally, because they had no prior criminal history and had been booked on only minor charges, Forbus said.

"We're focusing on higher level criminals," he said. "We're not going to refer somebody for jaywalking."

During the same period, police placed immigration detainers on 2,722 other inmates.

More than 106,000 people have been booked into the Clark County Detention Center since November 2008, Forbus said. Of those, the names of 16,469 were put through the ICE database. The majority of those people were determined to be living in the United States legally.

It's unknown how many local inmates referred to ICE were deported. ICE has said it doesn't track removals that way. Those referred to the agency by local law enforcement become part of ICE's larger caseload. Those cases can drag on for months or even years.

But more than 143,000 illegal immigrants nationwide have been identified for deportation as a result of the 287 (g) program in the past five years, according to Homeland Security.

The local partnership is one of dozens nationwide, including several in Arizona.

Some law enforcement agencies have signed a more far-reaching "task force" type of agreement with ICE that gives specially trained officers the authority to arrest illegal immigrants on the street. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Phoenix, under Sheriff Joe Arpaio, had such an agreement until last year. ICE stripped the office of that authority in the wake of Arpaio's controversial crime sweeps, which it said were inconsistent with the agency's priorities of focusing on criminals.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office also is the subject of an ongoing racial-profiling lawsuit related to the program and a Department of Justice investigation into allegations of discriminatory police practices, according to the Arizona Republic.

Federal officials last year also modified the 287 (g) program to clarify that its priority is to deport immigrants who are criminal fugitives or are already behind bars.

Arpaio has been one of the staunchest supporters of Arizona's new law.

The Metropolitan Police Department has a long-standing department policy that prevents local police on the street from asking potential immigration violators about their legal status.

The department spends $1.3 million a year to staff its 287 (g) program. The cost weighs heavy on Gillespie in these tough economic times, he said.

"It depletes our resources," he said. "But I've got to balance the community safety aspect with that. I have to know who is being booked into our jail. That's why I've kept it there."

McLetchie has called the program an "unfunded federal mandate" that has local law enforcement "taking on the burden of federal law enforcement and doing it for free." She said the partnership has had a chilling effect on the immigrant community, and makes victims afraid to report crimes against them.

But Forbus said the department has continued its outreach to the Hispanic community and that generally "people seem to support the program."

"We've shown them how do it," he said. "We have very specific criteria based on place of birth," not ethnicity.

"I believe 287 (g) is doing what we envisioned it doing," Gillespie said. "I think once you're given the opportunity to thoroughly explain what it is, people appreciate the fact we're doing it."

And Gillespie said he thinks any Nevada legislator pushing a law similar to Arizona's should consult local law enforcement on the matter.

"I would hope we would be included in those decisions, as it definitely impacts what we do."

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at
lcurtis@reviewjournal.com.