Baca's Plan to Screen Inmates OKd
A controversial plan to train clerks at the Los Angeles County jail to identify inmates who are illegal immigrants and turn them over to immigration officials was approved Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors.
After hours of intense debate, the board voted 3 to 2 for the plan, the first time a California jailer has agreed to screen inmates for immigration violations.
"People who come here illegally and commit crimes need to be prosecuted, do their time and then return to their home country," Sheriff Lee Baca said Monday.
Currently, two federal immigration agents stationed at Twin Towers Jail interview as many as 20 convicted foreign-born inmates daily.
About 80% are placed in federal custody for possible deportation or prosecution on federal immigration charges.
But federal officials estimate that about 40,000 of the 170,000 inmates who come through the county jail each year are in the United States illegally.
Under the plan, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would train six custodial assistants employed by the county to interview convicted inmates on their immigration status. The clerks would be supervised by federal immigration agents, who would continue to do interviews.
Jails Chief Chuck Jackson estimated that the additional interviewers could identify as many as 100 illegal immigrants a day.
He assured board members that sheriff's deputies on patrol would not get involved in identifying illegal immigrants.
Supporting the pilot program were Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Michael Antonovich and Don Knabe.
Yaroslavsky expressed concern that jail officials would refer inmates to federal custody before they were tried and convicted. After introducing an amendment that would allow the Sheriff's Department to refer only illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, Yaroslavsky indicated support for the measure on a trial basis.
"We owe no obligation to someone who has been convicted of a crime and is here illegally," he said.
Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina voted against the plan.
Molina said that immigration was a federal issue and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had declined Baca's repeated requests to increase the number of agents at the jail. "I worry about taking more ownership and responsibility without any benefit," she said.
