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| El Paso jail locks in feds' funding |
| By Bruce Finley |
| Published: 04/20/2009 |
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Faced with a budget crunch that forced him to lay off deputies, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa has tapped a new source of revenue: illegal immigrants. Maketa has started leasing space in his jail to house an average of 150 immigrants a night for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also sent 17 jail deputies for training in immigration procedures so they can initiate deportations without waiting for federal agents. ICE pays $62.40 a night for each detained immigrant, plus mileage for transport in sheriff's vans. The arrangement pumped $3.6 million into El Paso County over the past year and now provides 10 percent of the jail's budget. But Maketa said the money is just one factor driving his broadening alliance with ICE. "I feel like we're truly contributing to (solving) a national problem," said Maketa, one of 67 law enforcement agency chiefs nationwide who have had deputies authorized to enforce federal immigration laws. His large-scale detention deal hasn't caught on with fellow Front Range sheriffs, but ICE officials have hashed out agreements to hold at least some immigrants for short periods in 40 of Colorado's 64 county jails. Nationwide, sheriffs and other local agency chiefs are lining up to do as Maketa has done in having deputies authorized to initiate deportations. Several Denver-area sheriffs — annoyed at delays in relying on a limited number of ICE agents to handle possible illegal immigrants in jails — say they're considering sending deputies for federal ICE training. "There's support from taxpayers to take the next step" in immigration enforcement, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said. "In light of some of the things that have happened, obviously the case in Aurora of the kid that got killed in the ice cream shop and some other situations (involving illegal immigrants), we want to be doggone sure of who is coming through our jail," Mink said. "If we can use technology to do that, and additional training to do that — even though it's a federal responsibility — we are willing to do that." A common sight in jails On any given night, most jails in the Denver area and across Colorado hold suspected illegal immigrants. Under state law, jailors must notify ICE and, if ICE is interested and able, the agency places a hold on the inmate. If ICE agents fail to pick up the inmate within 48 hours, the inmate is released when local charges are resolved. But that raises public safety concerns and is not something the public wants, said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, who added that he, like other sheriffs, had previously been reluctant to take on an immigration role. "Everybody's attitude was: 'That's the job of the federal government, and we're not going to do it for them.' Well, when the federal government isn't doing their job, the sheriffs get frustrated and the citizens get frustrated," Cooke said. "We're going to do the right thing for the citizens of our counties." On a recent night in Maketa's El Paso County jail, more than 200 immigrants from Mexico, Taiwan and elsewhere were incarcerated — outfitted in the same orange suits and housed alongside criminals including murderers, rapists and other felons with Taser-equipped deputies keeping watch. About 70 percent of the immigrants were held for no crime — only the federal civil offense of violating immigration rules. They arrived at the jail in sheriff's vans that collect them from federal custody in Denver and Pueblo. The rest were inmates who'd been arrested by police for crimes in the Colorado Springs area and then checked against immigration computers by one of the 17 trained deputies with access to the database. These deputies immediately start federal deportation proceedings — and start billing ICE for the cost of housing those inmates. "When county budgets are decreasing, this is a revenue source," detention bureau chief Paula Presley said. Now under a video hookup to federal immigration courts, a sheriff's meeting room may serve as a forum for federal judicial proceedings. "It's hard because all my family is in Denver," Rodolfo Gonzalez, 19, said as deputies led him in shackles from a van. He faces deportation to Mexico. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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