Oregon Public Broadcasting

This year, the Immigration Customs Enforcement Service is on track to blow past last year’s total for cases prosecuted in the Northwest. 

Since October 1st, 124 people have been deported—already an increase over the same period last year.  But they’re not doing it alone.

The relationship between immigration enforcement and local law enforcement is inching closer. April Baer reports on the intersection of the two worlds.

Every morning in Oregon City, two Immigration Enforcement Agents go to work at the Clackamas County Jail.

The agents pat down the handcuffed inmates under the greenish glare of fluorescents.  They take wallets and keys in plastic bags. In a few minutes, they’ll take custody of the detainees for transfer.

Lt. Todd Rollins with the Sheriff’s Department explains this is also the place where custody begins.

Todd Rollins   “This is our booking area. When someone’s arrested, they’re brought into the booking area, they stand here on this line, and we do our process. Doesn’t matter who they are. Every single person’s treated the same as far as the questions we ask them.”

One key question is ‘Where were you born?’  Depending on the answer, Sheriff’s staff will then pass a list of names on to the two Immigrations and Customs Enforcement --or ICE-- Agents working on-site.

Whether they were arrested for traffic violations, or more serious crimes, if they’re believed to be in the country illegally, they’re held here, at the county jail.

The number of foreign-born people arrested in Clackamas County is relatively small. It’s not uncommon to see a thousand people a month,  but usually fewer than a hundred come from other countries. And some -- not all -- of those people are in the county illegally.

Sheriff Craig Roberts says he believes it’s been worth the county’s investment to hold undocumented immigrants until ICE can collect them. The feds help pay for that.

Craig Roberts  “This past year, we got about $100,000, which really is a tip of the iceberg for the amount of resources we put into this. Obviously funding is a big issue.”

Traditionally, local police and Sheriffs’ staff have not done work that would lead to immigration prosecutions. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 has frequently been interpreted so as to leave most enforcement work to the federal government. 

But two factors are nudging these two lines of work closer together. First, Congress has increased funding for immigration enforcement in recent years.

That’s led to more staffing like the two ICE Agents in Clackamas County.

Second, local investigators are following changes in the drug trade. The growing influence of Mexican drug cartels and to a lesser extent, smaller Asian trafficking groups, is camouflaged within the law-abiding immigrant communities.

Siovhan Sheridan Ayala is an attorney focusing on immigration law practice.

Siovhan Sheridan Ayala  “In the past, there’s been priorities ICE has had, in terms of what sort of criminals they go after. Now the net is cast so wide, These people, who I see through my doors, are people who’ve a lot of times have been here for many, many years, they have citizen children.”

Ayala also has concerns about how the tightening relationship between ICE and local departments will affect local community policing efforts, cooling relations with immigrant communities.

For the present, however, many police departments appear glad to have the a closer relationship with ICE.  The federal government is ramping up information sharing, the Secure Communities system, that will use fingerprints and other biometrics to scan for immigration offenders when a criminal records check is made.

Oregon may be on the system as soon as next year.

Sheriff Craig Roberts says he won’t say "no" to the resources ICE offers, as long as they're fully-funded.

Craig Roberts   “What I’m so pleased about is having immigration here, which has really helped pick up a lot of the load.”

One overall effect of the increasingly close relationship is that the system is speeding up by degrees. There was an increase in Pacific Northwest deportations between 2007 and 2008, and those figures are expected to rise by another ten percent this year.

Neil Clark, ICE  Field Office Director for the area encompassing Oregon, says the agency couldn’t do it’s work without the help of local officers.

Neil Clark  “The jails down here--when they’re released to us, they’re normally only in Oregon for a day or two. Some of the individuals we’re still processing –prosecutions or things like that--may stay a day or two.”

But Oregon jails are only one stop in the process. Detainees in ICE are transferred to privately-run detention facilities in Tacoma, where they await trial, and  possible deportation.