Nationwide Expansion of INS Sweeps in Jails Urged

Nearly a year after federal agents launched a screening program aimed at rooting out illegal immigrants in the Ventura County Jail, an effort is underway to expand the program nationwide.

The pilot program sponsored by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) has proven so effective that the congressman will argue before the House of Representatives today to expand it to 100 other counties across the country.

Authorities estimate that about one out of every 10 inmates in the County Jail is in the United States illegally or has committed a crime worthy of deportation.

During the first 11 months of the jailhouse screening effort, agents interviewed 1,648 inmates and put immigration holds on 943 of them, the first step toward booting them out of the country once they do their time.

Of those, 847 were illegal immigrants booked for offenses ranging from shoplifting to murder. And most eventually will be formally deported, a move that sets them up for felony prosecution if they return.

“I think it has been a tremendous success,” said Kevin Jeffery, who heads the criminal alien section of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles. “I think a lot of people are simply surprised by the numbers. And certainly if we had not been there, these people would have done their county time and been released right back into the community.”

The thrust of the program, also operated by the Anaheim City Jail, is to take criminals off the streets of this country and send them back where they came from.

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INS officials said they don’t how many of the identified illegal immigrants have been deported.

In casting their net, INS agents have hauled in a wide variety of illegal immigrants, some with long criminal histories. Among them are Jose Zavala, a suspected serial rapist accused of terrorizing women in Thousand Oaks before his arrest earlier this year, whose case is still pending.

The attacks touched a nerve in Ventura County, especially as word spread that Zavala was an illegal immigrant who had a lengthy criminal history and had twice been deported after serving time in jail.

Others identified through the screening program include Emilio Orosco, suspected of opening fire in April on two sheriff’s deputies during a traffic stop in El Rio. One of the deputies was seriously wounded by gunshots to the shoulder and chest. Orosco has been arraigned and is awaiting trial.

Also snared by the INS screening program was Felix Mendez Magana, an illegal immigrant convicted of the 1996 murder of Santa Paula restaurant owner Isabel Guzman. Magana had two previous arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, authorities said.

“In case after case,these guys were repeat offenders, but there had never been any screening,” Gallegly said. “The man convicted of murdering Mrs. Guzman at her Santa Paula restaurant had been arrested three or four times. He was a professional bad guy, but no one ever checked his immigration status.”

Under the screening program, two INS agents have been assigned since last November to identify jailed illegal immigrants before they go to court and tag them for deportation once they serve their sentences.

The agents use a variety of criteria for deciding who to interview, including whether inmates are identified as foreign-born nationals upon arrest or as they are booked into jail.

INS officials have no comprehensive breakdown of the kinds of crimes being committed by illegal immigrants.

And in a reversal from earlier practice, officials say they are now trying to send as many immigrants as possible through formal deportation proceedings, a move that allows them to be prosecuted for a felony just for returning to the United States.

The system is not foolproof. INS agents only work the main jail five days a week, eight hours a day.

In testimony earlier this year before the House subcommittee on immigration, Ventura County Undersheriff Richard Bryce said there are still plenty of times, especially after hours and on weekends, when the INS extends no coverage at all to the jail.

“This has allowed many criminal aliens to continue to slip through the system without being identified,” said Bryce, urging lawmakers to expand the program in Ventura County and elsewhere. “Criminals don’t just operate during business hours, neither should this program.”

Some critics worry, however, that such jailhouse examinations could infringe on the civil rights of inmates. And there is an added concern that in searching the jails, the INS may be casting its net too broadly.

In fact, INS officials said of the 1,648 inmates interviewed since the program started, 134 were U.S. citizens and 640 were legal immigrants.

As part of the program, dozens of legal immigrants also have been identified for deportation for committing crimes of “moral turpitude,” thus forfeiting their right to live in the U.S.

“My problem with this is that they’re probably painting with too broad a brush,” said attorney Oscar Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Ventura County Mexican-American Bar Assn.

“If the purpose of this program is to tag illegal immigrants and send them back home, then it seems that they have washed over that line,” Gonzalez added. “The pool that is being selected for questioning is too broad. And if we are going to start lumping legal and illegal immigrants together, then I think we should have some debate about that and understand what the public has to say about it.”

But for law enforcement officials in the county and elsewhere, the only question is whether lawbreakers are being punished and then prevented from committing crimes again in the U.S.

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Along with the Ventura County program, INS officers already routinely visit county jails in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and San Diego counties, but those facilities do not have agents assigned there permanently.

As a result, almost 11,000 illegal immigrants were identified for formal deportation during the six-month period ending March 31, INS officials said.

“Our main issue before this program came on line is that we couldn’t track these people and so they would simply be released from jail after serving their time,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Mark Ball, in charge of Ventura County’s main jail. “Our issue isn’t deporting illegal immigrants, but we do feel that criminal aliens should be deported and prevented from committing crimes again in this county.”