I.C.E - I.C.E. BABY!

(Courtesy of GORDON ANDERSON Herald Staff Writer SANFORD)

UPDATE AS OF Aug 26, 2008

Sheriff’s deputies in Lee County will soon be able to act as federal immigration agents when dealing with illegal residents who have committed crimes. It’s a policy Lee County Sheriff Tracy Carter says will send a message that “if you’re here illegally and you break the law, we’re going to start the deportation process.” Carter said he hopes that by the fall, some of his deputies will be attending classes for the Delegation of Authority Program. The pro­gram deals with section 287­G of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act and gives deputies access to a federal computer database that can tell them whether any inmate is here illegally. “We’ll screen each inmate in the jail,” Carter said. “And if they’re illegal, we can start the deportation process.” While deputies begin the process, the actual deporta­tion is carried out by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. “Only (ICE agents) are authorized to deport peo­ple,” Carter explained. “This will just allow us to be an extension of them.” The classes deputies will take are five weeks long. The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office has already begun its program, accord­ing to Randy Jones, the department’s public infor­mation officer. Jones said he would rec­ommend the program “to any other law enforcement agency in the state,” explaining that he sees it as a tool to get criminals out of the country.But the program has attracted criticism that agencies under the program will now go “looking” for illegal immigrants. Jones said such criticism is unwarranted. “One of the biggest hur­dles is misinformation about the program,” he said. “It doesn’t have us knock­ing on doors, checking IDs, doing roadblocks. 278-G is a program whereby people who are arrested are screened when they come in. This applies to any non American-born citizen, any foreigner.“ And despite some of the criticisms we’ve had, it doesn’t target Latinos. Just this past week, we’ve screened a Russian and a Laotian.” Jones said he believes the program actually makes communities safer for Hispanics. “One of the truths that I think people are missing — it is a known fact that peo­ple tend to offend within their own ethnicity — white on white crime, black on black crime, and Hispanic on Hispanic crime. So a common sense approach is if the data says people tend to offend within their own communities, your Hispanic and Latino communities are going to be safer — we’re actually protecting these communities better,” he said. Carter said several other agencies are going to be attending the classes while his deputies do. The train­ing fees, he said, have all been waived. “I’m asked a lot by citi­zens what we’re doing to deal with this problem,” he said “This will definitely be a step in the right direction.”