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Study questions use, cost of deportation program

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Staff

UNC News Services

A program in which local law-enforcement agencies refer immigrants who are in the country illegally to federal enforcers is resulting mostly in deportation of people arrested for minor offenses.

So say authors of a new study from UNC, who reviewed data from 2007 to 2009 provided by sheriff’s offices in five North Carolina counties – Alamance, Cabarrus, Gaston, Mecklenburg and Wake – participating in the federal program.

The authors say the program was intended to prioritize policing serious and violent crimes, but the study shows implementation has not followed these priorities. They ask if money for the program might be better spent on other crime-fighting efforts and add that their findings debunk the myth that increased immigration means higher crime rates.

“The study found that the majority of unauthorized immigrants are deported for driving-related offenses, not serious or violent crimes,” wrote researchers Hannah Gill, assistant director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and Mai Nguyen, assistant professor in UNC’s city and regional planning department. Gill is also is research associate at UNC’s Center for Global Initiatives.

The federal program, titled 287(g), is carried out through partnerships between local law-enforcement agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the federal Department of Homeland Security. 287(g) refers to the section in federal law authorizing it, which originated with amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act passed by Congress in 1996.

After an arrest, one screening question is whether the person was born in the United States. If the answer is no, deputies send the person’s fingerprints through an ICE database, which can provide, in moments, information as to whether the arrestee is in the country illegally.

Gill and Nguyen found that of arrestees booked through 287(g) from 2007-09 in the study counties, 86.7 percent were charged with misdemeanors and 13.3 percent with felonies.

“The ICE website states that the program gives local agencies resources to ‘pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling and money laundering,’” said Gill. “Data from this study show that local law-enforcement agencies adopting the program in North Carolina do not share these priorities, but instead focus on minor crimes.”

The website also says that 287(g) is intended to be used with foreign-born criminals and immigration violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Whether an illegal immigrant being held on domestic charges is allowed to post bail and be released pending trial is handled by ICE on a case-by-case basis.

After being arrested, illegal immigrants may chose to sign a statement in which they agree to voluntary deportation. “It is their choice, but they’re also making a choice without a lot of information,” said Nguyen. “These people don’t understand our legal system.”

Other North Carolina agencies participating in 287(g) are the Durham Police Department and the Guilford and Henderson county sheriff’s departments. Nguyen and Gill lauded Durham police for applying 287(g) only to felons.

The study authors calculated first-year costs for Alamance and Mecklenburg counties, at $4.8 million and $5.5 million, respectively. Those costs include local officers’ salaries and their ICE training “to enforce immigration law,” its website says. Training is for four weeks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, ICE Academy, in Charleston, S.C.

“What we’re finding is that taxpayers pay for all of it, regardless of whether it’s at the federal or the local level,” Gill said.

A second study finding is that, contrary to a commonly held belief, crime doesn’t increase along with immigration into an area. In Mecklenburg, for example, the number of Hispanic residents grew from 6,051 in 1990 to 79, 253 in 2006, and violent crime actually fell during that time, according to Gill.

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