Posted on 07/24/2008 1:12:36 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO — The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday called on Mayor Gavin Newsom to allow the federal agency full access to information about local inmates, saying the city should rescind its policy that prohibits ICE agents from reviewing jail logs and records.
A letter sent to Newsom from ICE director Julie Myers urging more access to inmate records was the latest flare-up following accusations that a San Francisco policy to shield undocumented immigrants also caused the city to shelter felons charged with serious crimes.
Eileen Hirst, chief of staff for San Francisco County Sheriff Michael Hennessey, said ICE agents cannot stroll through San Francisco jails to look at booking cards or "eyeball" inmates because the city's longstanding sanctuary law won't allow it.
"This is not the first time they have made this request," Hirst said of the letter. "It's not the first time the sheriff has said, 'Please identify the statute,' and they have been unable to do so."
Hirst pointed out that her department has handed over 1,100 people to ICE in the past 18 months. But ICE agents cannot get the direct access they want because San Francisco agencies do not cooperate with ICE investigations and detention unless federal law dictates that they must.
The ongoing tiff emphasizes the uniqueness of San Francisco's detention policies compared to those in neighboring Bay Area jurisdictions, where ICE agents pay regular visits to county jails.
Even those arrested in sanctuary cities such as Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond, which have similar self-imposed rules against cooperating with ICE, are likely to end up in Alameda and Contra Costa county jails where ICE has easy access.
"ICE will come out and visit us a couple times a week," said Alameda County Sheriff's Capt. Burt Wilkinson, commanding officer at the Santa Rita jail in Dublin. "We afford them access to our custody records so they can screen the inmate population."
Wilkinson said the county has no formal partnership with ICE, just a friendly arrangement in which the agencies share information. Staff members at the jail sometimes consult with ICE or refer inmates to them suspected of being illegal immigrants, he said.
During any given week, five to 10 immigration holds will be placed on inmates the county already has in custody, Wilkinson said. Typically, 50 to 75 of the Santa Rita jail's roughly 4,000 inmates are on immigration holds, he said.
Jimmy Lee, spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department, said his department also cooperates with ICE agents who come to the main county jail, the Martinez Detention Facility, several times a week. Lee said the sheriff's staff does not determine the immigration status of inmates or make referrals to ICE, letting the agency do that work.
Much of the escalating nationwide controversy about sanctuary policies stems from reports that staff members of San Francisco's juvenile probation department used the city's sanctuary policy to shield teen drug dealers from deportation by helping fly them to Honduras using city money.
City officials and ICE also blame each other for allowing the release from custody earlier this year of illegal immigrant and convicted felon Edwin Ramos of El Sobrante, who is now accused of killing three people in June.
Some immigrant advocates say they worry those cases might cause other local law enforcement agencies to take immigration questions into their own hands.
"Whatever you think of San Francisco's prior policy, clearly, there was a valid concern about San Francisco's not turning over juvenile felons to immigration," said Mark Silverman, lawyer with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. "My fear is that other cities will go overboard and start to use this as an excuse to turn immigrants over (to ICE) for relatively minor offenses like driving without a license."
How about we first deport the Mayor and City Council, and then we can work on all the illegals they have been sheltering..... /s
Does anybody here have pointers to good data on U.S. jail population ethnic (nationality, immigration status) demographics?
Maybe build a wall around S.F...if they don’t kill themselves in their own traffic jams.......
The Portland area is as bad as SF. They coddle their gangbangers until they murder someone too.
June 18, 2008
Man, 23, sentenced to life in murder
Casimiro Blancas, 26, of Hillsboro was sentenced to life in prison last month for stabbing Cruz, who was 27. Pablo Guzman, who testified against the other two, also is charged with murder and is awaiting trial
Blancas gathered fellow members of the 12th Street gang to seek revenge on Cruz, a drug dealer and member of the 18th Street gang. Three days earlier, Cruz punched Blancas in the face and knocked him to the ground outside a Hillsboro convenience store during a fight someone else started.
After drinking at Gonzalez’s house and at a gang member’s ranch, seven men piled into a Dodge Durango to go hunt down Cruz. Gonzalez provided a gun and urged the driver on.
http://olive-3.live.advance.net/metrowest/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_west_news/1213754111317340.xml&coll=7
And the problem with that is?
ping
Why not just cut off all federal funds to SF?
Hell, let them become their own third world country.
I propose a reasonable trade.
SF gives the feds (ICE) access to the illegal aliens in its jails.
The Feds give SF access to federal funds.
No access, no funds.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pim07.pdf
Another good place to look for all criminal justice statistics is the Bureau of Justice Statistics Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, hosted by the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center at the University at Albany. You can find all the government numbers there but nothing really on the exact number of illegals behind bars. They'll always talk about noncitizens instead, and most noncitizens are probably illegal.
Newsome needs some time in the pokey until he revokes his no show/no tell policy.
Portland and Seattle are every bit the cesspools that SF is.
"The U.S. Justice Department estimated that 270,000 illegal immigrants served jail time nationally in 2003. Of those, 108,000 were in California. Some estimates show illegals now make up half of California's prison population, creating a massive criminal subculture that strains state budgets and creates a nightmare for local police forces."
Citing an Urban Institute study, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies Steven Camorata noted in 2004: "Roughly 17 percent of the prison population at the federal level are illegal aliens. That's a huge number since illegal aliens only account for about 3 percent of the total population."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform also turned to the Justice Department to get statistics on criminal aliens. They report:
"In March 2000, Congress made public Department of Justice statistics showing that, over the previous five years, the INS had released over 35,000 criminal aliens instead of deporting them. Over 11,000 of those released went on to commit serious crimes, over 1,800 of which were violent ones [including 98 homicides, 142 sexual assaults, and 44 kidnappings].
"In 2001, thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court, the INS was forced to release into our society over 3,000 criminal aliens [who collectively had been convicted of 125 homicides, 387 sex offenses, and 772 assault charges]."
Up to a third of the U.S. federal prison population is composed of non-citizens, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics - but not all non-citizen prison inmates are illegal aliens.
As to the "hard-working" claim, CIS notes: "The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 24.5 percent compared to 16.3 percent for native households."
ICE should just do it....not ask for permission.
For those outside the Bay-airhead area, this has to do with a recent killing of a man and his two sons in San Francisco for what was a minor traffic dust-up (I think one cut the other off, or something similar).
Someone in the San Francisco Comical did some checking and found that the shooter was an illegal from South America with a loooooong rap sheet. However, because he gave his address as San Francisco, ICE was unable to find him and ship his a$$ back where it belonged.
The only possible positive to this story, if there is one, is that Gavin Newsome probably just lost any chance he had to become governor of Cali-phony-a in 2010.
Look in the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report —released Jun 9, 2008
"uniqueness". lol, how quaint. I wonder how'd that taste over rice pilaf.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.