News

November 19, 2008

Houston Chronicle series regarding ICE enforcement at Harris County Allegations vs. Facts

For those who may have read The Houston Chronicle’s three part series: "A System's Fatal Flaws",
here are the facts that didn’t make it into the story:

Background:
The series, which ran from Sunday, November 16, 2008, through Tuesday, November 18, is based upon outdated information from an eight-month period between June 2007 and February 2008.

One overarching truth that has been ignored is that now all new admissions to the Harris County Jail are automatically checked for immigration history. Additionally, all detainees who admit to being foreign-born are interviewed by ICE or trained Harris County officers to definitively determine their alienage and place that individual into removal proceedings, if warranted.

It is also of crucial importance to note that ICE did not have the opportunity to verify the validity of all the information presented in the Houston Chronicle series. The methodology used to reach the conclusions The Chronicle presented may not paint an actual account of how ICE handled each case. Each ICE case is unique and until each case is reviewed on its own merits, we think it is inappropriate to draw the statistical conclusions reached in the series. For the benefit of the public, ICE would have preferred being involved with this investigation before publication, so that fully accurate, ICE-confirmed information would have been disseminated instead.

In June 2007, ICE coverage at the Harris County Jail consisted of one Immigration Enforcement Agent (IEA) assigned for an eight hour shift (3 shifts per day, seven days a week). The IEAs assigned to the jail reviewed records of newly admitted detainees, determined who among those detainees was in the United States illegally and amenable to removal proceedings, and prioritized among those detainees to ensure that the most egregious violators were held for removal proceedings.

Today, ICE has assigned eleven ICE personnel, full-time to the Harris County Jail who work to identify anyone who may be in the country illegally and amenable to removal. The Harris County Sheriff's office also has a pool of nine 287(g) trained deputies who work with ICE to identify, interview, and process criminal aliens for removal.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, the ICE office in Houston identified and placed more than 13,300 illegal aliens encountered in the custody of another law enforcement agency into removal proceedings, including more than 7,200 from the Harris County Jail. This is an increase of more than 3,300 over FY07.

In addition to the gains detailed above, on October 27^th, the Harris County Jail became the first in the country to utilize "interoperability" under the ICE Secure Communities Program. Interoperability provides the technology which automatically compares an individual's fingerprints against data contained in criminal and immigration databases maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Criminal Justice Information Services and DHS.

It is important to note that every individual case is unique and there are many factors that must be reviewed before conclusions can be drawn and comparisons made. ICE continues to review the histories of each individual case highlighted by the reporter. However, in the interest of accuracy, the Houston Chronicle should have afforded ICE an opportunity to review the cases before publication to ensure their readers received full and current information.

Allegations vs. Fact

• Allegation: Federal immigration officials allowed scores of violent criminals - some ordered deported decades ago - to walk away from Harris County Jail despite the inmates' admission to local authorities that they were in the country illegally, a Houston Chronicle investigation found.
  ICE facts: ICE has made significant strides to identify all criminal aliens detained in the Harris County Jail. The ICE office in Houston currently has round-the-clock coverage at the Harris County Jail. In addition, Harris County has nine 287(g) trained deputies working alongside 11 ICE agents and officers, expanding our ability to screen foreign-born inmates.
  In FY08, the ICE office in Houston identified and placed more than 13,300 illegal aliens encountered in the custody of another law enforcement agency into removal proceedings, including more than 7,200 in the Harris County Jail. This is an increase of 3,300 over FY07. Nationally, ICE identified and placed into removal proceedings more than 221,000 criminal aliens encountered in prisons and jails in FY08, more than triple the number from three years ago. Also, local law enforcement officers trained through ICE's 287(g) identified more than 45,000 additional aliens for possible immigration violations.
• Allegation: A review of thousands of criminal and immigration records shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not file the paperwork to detain roughly 75 percent of the more than 3,500 inmates who told jailers during the booking process that they were in the U.S. illegally.
  Although most of the inmates released from custody were accused of minor crimes, hundreds of convicted felons - including child molesters, rapists and drug dealers - also managed to avoid deportation after serving time in Harris County's jails, according to the Chronicle review, which was based on documents filed over a period of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.
  ICE facts: As noted above, the ICE office in Houston filed more than 7,200 detainers in Harris County and another 6,285 at other local, state, and federal facilities during the period of time from December 29, 2007, until November 10, 2008. The timeframe that the reporters chose to utilize for this article (June of 2007 to February of 2008) is a time that ICE made significant strides to identify all illegal aliens housed at the Harris County Jail - the 287(g) authority delegation to the Sheriff's deputies, and the roll out of interoperability, which are explored further below.
  Before the series concluded, ICE asked the reporter for a copy of the information she used to draw her conclusions. She denied our request. Therefore, on November 17, 2008, ICE formally requested in writing a copy of the database maintained by Harris County Jail that includes all of the self-proclaimed foreign born inmates who were booked into the facility during the time period referenced in the article. A copy of that database was received on November 18, 2008. ICE is in the process of vetting that database which contains 4,353 entries. We will carefully review the status of each detainee on that list, and ICE will take appropriate action to ensure that no illegal aliens remain in Harris County custody or were released prior to the placement of an ICE detainer.
• Allegation: In 177 cases reviewed by the Chronicle, inmates who were released from jail after admitting to being in the country illegally later were charged with additional crimes. More than half of those charges were felonies, including aggravated sexual assault of a child and capital murder.
  ICE facts: ICE believes that those "177 cases" should be contained within the database of 4,353 entries received on November 18, 2008, and ICE will attempt to either validate or repudiate that claim.
  ICE and Harris County have worked together to make improvements in identifying criminal aliens in the Harris County Jail. We strongly believe that the cases cited in the series are based on old data; and are not an accurate representation of the partnership between our two agencies. The Harris County Jail is a participant in the 287(g) Program, which works as a force multiplier in identifying criminal aliens in the Harris County Jail. We have implemented tools such as interoperability and 287(g) to assist us in effectively identifying and removing criminal aliens from the United States.
  Allegation: The investigation found that the federal government's system to identify and deport illegal immigrants in Harris County Jail is overwhelmed and understaffed. Gaps in the system have allowed some convicted criminals to avoid detection by immigration officials despite being previously deported. The problems are national in scope, fueled by a shortage of money and manpower.
  ICE facts: As stated above, ICE has assigned eleven ICE personnel, full time to the Harris County Jail who work to identify anyone who may be in the country illegally and amenable to removal. The Harris County Sheriff's office also has a pool of nine 287(g) trained deputies who work with ICE to identify, interview, and process criminal aliens for removal.
  However, ICE must, like any other law enforcement agency, prioritize its enforcement responses. To ensure that resources are used in the most effective way possible, ICE utilizes a risk-based approach to determine where and how to best deploy these resources. ICE's methodology of prioritization and the resultant plan of action are detailed within the ICE Secure Communities mission statement, which sets out a comprehensive plan to improve community safety by transforming the way the federal government cooperates with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify, detain, and remove all criminal aliens held in custody.
  ICE has recognized that using the existing CAP model alone would be expensive and slow to scale to nationwide identification of all criminal aliens, especially when adding coverage to areas where the number of criminal aliens are small and dispersed. Therefore, to complement CAP operations, ICE has been working with nationwide law enforcement partners and particularly with the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) to better combine resources and share information through technology to achieve full nationwide identification of criminal aliens. ICE combined these efforts and others into a comprehensive plan for building upon current criminal alien identification methods to process all criminal aliens amenable for removal while in federal, state, and local custody.
  One portion of this plan is interoperability between FBI/CJIS's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and DHS' Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) systems. IAFIS is the FBI's national central repository for biometric-based criminal identification information submitted by local, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies. IAFIS also contains biometric-based records on wanted persons and known or suspected terrorists. IDENT is DHS' central repository for biometric identification information on international travelers to the United States who are enrolled through US-VISIT as well as known or suspected terrorists, criminals, immigration violators, and others. Upon arrest, IDENT/IAFIS 'interoperability' will allow ICE to positively identify suspected criminal aliens previously encountered by DHS. ICE is collaborating extensively with CJIS and LEAs to make interoperability enhancements that help identify criminal aliens who have not been encountered by DHS before. Through this automated exchange of information between law enforcement partners, ICE will achieve nationwide screening of all new arrestees for criminal alien status and take further action as appropriate. ICE has recently achieved interoperability in Harris County, the first site for the country to come online; and additionally is now staffed 24/7 by ICE officers and 287(g) trained local Harris County Sheriff's deputies, in that while interoperability will identify potential criminal aliens, it does not automatically determine immigration status for those identified.
  Allegations: ICE removed 107,000 convicted criminals from the U.S. in the 2008 fiscal year, which ended in September. But during the same time frame, ICE sent home more than two times as many illegal immigrants without criminal records, prompting criticism from some members of Congress.
  ICE facts: In FY08, ICE removed more than 110,000 criminal aliens from the U.S., and additionally removed more than 247,500 non-criminal aliens from the US. During FY08, the CAP program issued more than 221,000 charging documents against incarcerated aliens - more than triple the number from two years ago. Also, local law enforcement officers training through ICE's 287(g) identified more than 45,000 additional aliens for possible immigration violations. Many of those identified aliens are still serving criminal sentences, so an increase in criminal removals will occur when and if those aliens are released to ICE for removal.
• Allegation: Though ICE has improved screening in federal and state prisons in recent years, the agency estimates it screens inmates in only about 10 percent of the nation's jails.
  ICE facts: ICE currently screens all inmates referred to ICE who claim to be foreign-born at all federal and state prisons. In addition, any law enforcement agency can query the immigration status of an individual they encounter through ICE's Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC). CAP officers routinely visit or are dispatched to local jails requesting assistance and have contributed to the increased success of identifying and removing criminal aliens in custody.
• Allegation: This spring, ICE officials announced a plan to identify and deport the most serious offenders in the nation's prisons and jails, estimating it would cost between $930 million and $1 billion and take about 3 1/2 years.
  ICE facts: The FY09 budget provides a total of $5.9 billion for ICE law enforcement efforts and activities; which is $360 million more than last year, and represents a 6.5 percent increase in ICE funding. This funding increase will enable ICE to continue to build upon the momentum we have gained.
  The new budget includes increased resources for ICE's critical law enforcement efforts. Highlights include:
• $150 million to continue to implement the Secure Communities program, strengthening ICE's efforts to identify criminal aliens and remove them from the United States.
• $127 million for investigative activities related to worksite enforcement, enabling us to continue our efforts toward targeting the magnet of employment as a source of illegal immigration. This includes $34 million in additional funding specifically designated by Congress to expand worksite enforcement operations.
• $72 million for additional detention beds, personnel, and removal costs. These resources will allow ICE to increase the number of detention beds from 32,000 in FY08 to 33,400 in FY09.
• $57 million in new money to modernize ICE's information technology infrastructure.
• Nearly $12 million to increase the staffing for ICE's Visa Security Program and the Security Advisory Opinion Unit.
• $14 million for ICE's efforts to improve coordination with, and the oversight of, state and local law enforcement. This will continue to be done through the 287(g) program and the Law Enforcement Support Center.
• $3 million to increase staffing for the Office of Intelligence's Field Intelligence Groups.
• Allegation: The nation's system for identifying and deporting immigrants convicted of crimes is largely secretive. ICE officials refuse to disclose the names or basic immigration history of people detained and marked for deportation, citing privacy protections in federal law.
  To better understand how ICE screens inmates, the Chronicle obtained a copy of a database, maintained by the Harris County Sheriff's Office, of inmates who tell jailers during booking that they are in the U.S. illegally.
  The Sheriff's Office voluntarily started questioning inmates about their legal status and created the database in September 2006, after a previously deported felon killed Houston police officer Rodney Johnson. During the booking process, inmates are asked whether they are in the country illegally. If they answer 'yes,' their name and jail ID number is entered into a database that is shared with ICE agents in Houston.
  ICE fact: ICE is transparent about the process in which we identify and remove criminal aliens in local custody. However, federal law prohibits ICE from releasing personally identifiable information regarding individuals who are in immigration proceedings.
• Allegation: ICE officials would not answer specific questions about ICE staffing at the Harris County or city jails but said screening has improved in recent months. In October, the Sheriff's Office started testing a Homeland Security database that gives jailers access to millions of immigration records. The county's participation in the federal government's 287(g) program, which trains jailers to act as immigration agents, also is expected to help improve screening, ICE officials said.
  Harris County Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia, who defeated incumbent Tommy Thomas in the November general election, said he plans to evaluate the office's participation in the program after he takes office in January. Thomas said he believes the program is necessary - at least until ICE has the resources to improve screening.
  ICE facts: As stated above, there are eleven ICE personnel assigned full-time to the Harris County Jail who work to identify anyone who may be in the country illegally and amenable to removal. The Harris County Sheriff's office also has a pool of nine 287(g) trained deputies who work with ICE to identify, interview, and process criminal aliens for removal.