On February 4, 1999, I said this:
YOU BETTER PRAY THAT THE L.A. CITY COUNCIL LIFTS Special Order 40 (L.A. law that police aren't allowed to cooperate with INS by establishing the immigration status of someone who has been stopped for a traffic citation -- even though police can otherwise do a complete make on the detainee).
I'm very pessimistic about California's future. I think it's too late now, but at least I want to be able to say "I told you so!"
Hal Netkin
=========================================
INS Weighs Plan to Free Criminals space Lacking
By William Branigin
The Washington Post, February 4, 1999; Page A02
Desperate to free up detention space, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is making plans to release illegal immigrants who are being held on assault, drug trafficking and other charges, including some whom the agency is required by law to detain.
None of the nearly 13,000 foreign criminals being held by the INS pending deportation has yet been freed, agency officials said. But proposals to do so are stirring outrage among INS field managers and members of Congress.
Among those who may be released if the plans go ahead are foreigners who have been convicted in U.S. courts not only of assault and drug crimes, but also of burglary, counterfeiting, alien smuggling, possession of explosives, extortion, manslaughter and sexual molestation, according to internal INS documents.
The INS says it still hopes to avoid freeing the prisoners, but that some releases now appear inevitable because of obligations to detain a growing number of serious offenders and a shortfall in funding for jail space.
Yet, some senior INS field managers say they would rather break the rules against overspending their detention budgets than release criminals into communities and endanger public safety. Agency district directors also have expressed concern that they could be held personally liable if a criminal they released committed another crime.
A draft plan to release criminal aliens is outlined in an internal memo sent this week to INS district directors and Border Patrol chiefs in the agency's eastern region, which covers states east of the Mississippi. The memo, written by INS acting Regional Director Michael G. Devine, stems from a Jan. 8 directive from INS headquarters that advised field managers of the budget crunch and told them to consider releasing people based on the seriousness of their offenses.
That directive said "known or suspected terrorists" should not be freed under any circumstances, but it left open the prospect of releasing "criminals" who are in deportation proceedings or have final orders of deportation against them. The vast majority of these foreign convicts must be detained under a 1996 immigration law.
The latest memo indicated that in the eastern region alone, more than 1,550 criminals whose detention costs exceed the current funding level would have to be freed. The eastern region is the hardest hit of the INS's three regions because its detention costs tend to be higher.
Attached to the memo were a "criminal custody worksheet" and other materials to help in "quantifying the alien's criminal history in terms of severity of criminal background and evidence of violent behavior." The attachments outlined a proposed point system for five categories of offenses. Detainees with seven points or more would have to remain in custody, while those with zero to six would be considered for release. Crimes worth six points or less under the system include arson, armed robbery, manslaughter, the trafficking of drugs worth more than $1 million, bribery, firearms violations and alien smuggling.
Devine said the memo was sent out to elicit "comment," rather than as a directive to be implemented now.
"We're making plans in case we get to a position where we have no alternative, where we have more aliens subject to mandatory detention than we have beds," he said. "To date, we haven't released anybody, but there may come a point where that's an option we can't avoid anymore." Most of the detainees have already served time for their crimes, "and if they were U.S. citizens, they'd be out on the street," Devine said.
"It's likely at some point that some districts will have to release mandatory detainees," a headquarters official said. "If it reaches that point, the service is going to have to comply with the law as best it can within the resources it has, placing public safety as its priority." While the INS has a record budget of nearly $4 billion this year, most of the increased funding has gone to a buildup along the U.S.-Mexican border, as directed by Congress, the official said.
The INS has received increased funding for detention, but it hasn't been enough to keep pace with the growing need to detain criminal aliens.
However, according to Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the INS, the agency "has only itself to blame." He said the INS has wasted money by not properly implementing a program to deport foreign criminals immediately after the completion of their jail terms and has failed to explore the possibility of using detention space on military bases. "The American people would not be happy with their own government releasing criminals into their neighborhoods," Smith said. "That's a real horror story written by the U.S. government."
An INS spokesman, Russ Bergeron, said the agency has worked hard to deport criminals from state and federal jails and "can do better" with greater cooperation from the prison systems and immigration courts. But he said this "will not solve the problem" by itself. Moreover, he said, converting military facilities into INS detention centers "takes resources that don't exist."
