By NC WANTED Staff

Posted: Sep 24, 2008
Updated: Oct 9, 2008

Preface: For weeks, NC WANTED researched and investigated the 287(g) immigration enforcement program in North Carolina. We witnessed advocacy groups speaking out, sheriffs putting themselves on the hot seat, and a growing divide between those who hate 287(g) and those who love it.

A Movement Begins: Code Name 287(g)

He could be described as North Carolina’s founding father of 287(g).

In 1972, former sheriff of Mecklenburg County Jim Pendergraph took an oath to protect the public by upholding the laws of the land. His life-long dedication eventually led him to push the limits of local law enforcement by tackling one of the nation’s most daunting challenges - illegal immigration.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, an estimated 11 million people are in this country illegally at a time when our country faces a strain on the economy, the health care system, social services, unemployment, the courts and an overcrowded prison system.

A few years ago, while he was still sheriff, Pendergraph began crunching numbers. His sheriff’s office was spending more and more money each year on interpreters. He was scrambling for resources to process the growing number of foreign-born, non-English-speaking arrestees.

Pendergraph found a solution in a program called 287(g), named for a paragraph in the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act that allows local and state law enforcement agencies to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to gain access to federal resources in the fight against crime.

Soon, Pendergraph became a champion of 287(g). He launched the program in Mecklenburg County in 2006. It was the first of its kind in North Carolina and east of Arizona. His hawkish efforts made North Carolina a leader in local immigration enforcement. Under his leadership, Mecklenburg County identified and marked 2,000 illegal immigrants for deportation in its first year.

The folks at ICE in Washington, D.C. took notice.

Not long after his accomplishments with the program, Pendergraph was hired by ICE to become executive director for state and local coordination at ICE headquarters in Washington.

Pendergraph is now in his last days with ICE. He recently resigned and will step down on October 24, 2008, just days before the November elections.

A Backlash

Facing pressure to crack down on the “illegals” in their counties, sheriffs across the state and the nation have admired Pendergraph’s success, and have already signed up for their own 287(g) programs.

The popularity of local 287(g) programs has triggered a growing wave of local enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, sparking controversy in North Carolina’s Latino neighborhoods.

Advocacy groups such as El Pueblo and La Raza say 287(g) targets an entire community of people based on their native tongue and appearance.

Some Washington lawmakers, such as U.S. Congressman David Price, have criticized the 287(g) program and ICE for workplace raids they claim are a result of “misguided priorities.”

And while most agree that the nation’s immigration laws are in desperate need of reform, few see eye to eye on a fair and comprehensive solution to one of the most polarizing issues of our time.

What is 287(g)?

The most publicized function of the 287(g) program is to establish partnership contracts between local law enforcement agencies and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Each 287(g) partnership contract is officially called a “Memorandum of Agreement,” which allows ICE to train local deputies and detention officers in immigration enforcement, and to provide access to the ICE fingerprints database.

The fingerprints database is crucial in identifying undocumented people “aliens” and entering them into the system. Once the fingerprints are stored, ICE has a centralized method of tracking aliens, so their criminal records do not become lost among a highly mobile population.

The 287(g) program also provides at least one ICE agent at each of North Carolina’s participating jails. After a detainee is processed by local officials under 287g and their state charges are dealt with, they are transferred into ICE custody for removal proceedings.

One lesser-known component of 287(g) is the “Task Force” option. This component allows for local law enforcement officers to work in the field alongside ICE agents. 287(g) task force officers target and arrest “criminal aliens” in the community for crimes such as drug trafficking, gang activity, and various violent crimes.

In Durham, Chief Jose Lopez assigned one of his police officers to become the first 287(g) task force officer in the state. This officer works directly with ICE, but gets paid by the Durham Police Department.

What 287(g) Is Not

A myth of 287(g) is the idea that an ICE partnership translates into federal funding for rural local law enforcement agencies.

Critics contend that by signing a 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement, ICE will bankroll a profitable “business” for each participating sheriff, providing federal dollars to buy new patrol cars, hire more deputies, and build new additions to their detention facilities.

None of the participating sheriffs we interviewed acknowledged any additional funding or federal resources resulting from their ICE agreements.

NC WANTED reviewed the “Frequently Asked Questions” in the 287(g) section of the ICE website, which reads “The requesting agency is required to pay their officers’ salary” and “…the requesting agency is required to fund these costs” of computer and network systems. We could not find any mention of funding for patrol cars and detention facilities.

287(g): One County at a Time

In North Carolina, eight law enforcement agencies have signed Memorandums of Agreement with ICE, but each 287(g) agreement appears to have a different meaning for each agency and county.

In Wake County, Sheriff Donnie Harrison sees the 287(g) program as a mutually beneficial relationship with federal law enforcement.

“They (ICE) have provided all the training, they have provided most of the equipment that we use up in the jail and they’ve really been there for us,” he said. On the other hand, he said, because it is a federal issue, they should help supplement sheriff’s departments so they can hire more deputies to replace those that are caught up handling 287g arrestees.

“Local law enforcement is a plus for them because we know what’s going on in our county, we know where the problems are, that kind of problems we’re having, so I think they’re smart to use us,” Harrison said. “But I think as time goes along, they’re going to see how valuable we are and we’re going to get a lot more help out of the federal government.”

Formula: 287(g) Arrest = Deportation

Nationally, more than 70,000 illegal immigrants have been identified and marked for deportation since January 2006.

Pendergraph said that of those marked for deportation, 99 percent are eventually removed from the country, and the individuals serving prison sentences for crimes committed here will serve their debts to U.S. society, before being deported.

Hispanic advocacy groups allege that the 287(g) program unfairly deports individuals who have committed minor traffic violations. They point out that with these offenses, the deportation process replaces a trial, and undocumented people are not given the “innocent until proven guilty” right the Constitution affords American citizens.

“It’s not a matter of… getting rid of the criminal element, we’re just getting rid of people,” said Tony Asion, executive director of Latino advocacy group El Pueblo. “If you really want this program to do exactly what they’re saying it’s supposed to be doing, then we check the criminal status of people after conviction… The way it (287g) was sold was to get rid of these criminals, the people that are doing these serious crimes… and they’re really out to hurt others. That’s not who’s being deported.”

Pendergraph acknowledges that traffic violations can and do result in deportation, but he believes catching individuals breaking immigration laws is the proper thing to do.

“I do feel sorry for people who come here trying to improve the way that they live and trying to be able to support their families better,” Pendergraph said. “But there’s also the legal aspect and until Congress changes the law, we have to enforce the law as it is because, again, we can’t pick and choose the laws that we decide we just don’t want to enforce.”

Locals Enforcing Federal Laws

One of the controversial aspects of 287(g) is the empowerment of local law enforcement to serve as an extension of ICE, a federal agency.

Advocacy groups and some legislators argue that being in the country illegally is a violation of federal law and is not the type of criminal offense sheriff’s offices should be enforcing.

“Obviously Alamance County’s deportation system has become a business… we have created an animosity towards Latinos in that county because the sheriff has a personal vendetta against Latinos and undocumented people in his county and he figures he is going to fix this problem, which is not a problem for the sheriff to be handling. It’s a federal problem,” Asion said.

Asion was referring to an agreement Alamance County, which has one of the most active – and sometimes inflammatory -- 287g programs in the state, made with ICE to rent out bed space in their newly built correctional facility for federal detainees. (Note: NC WANTED sat down with Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson, whose interview will appear in future installments of this weekly series.)

North Carolina Leading the 287(g) Movement

Despite the opposition to 287(g), ICE is moving full speed ahead to expand its impact and make the programs available to all law enforcement agencies throughout the country. Within the next three and a half years, every law enforcement agency in the country will have access to ICE’s fingerprint database, Pendergraph recently announced.

In the mean time, North Carolina remains a pilot state for local partnerships with ICE. The nation will continue to watch North Carolina as it strives to equip all law enforcement agencies with federal fingerprinting capabilities.

In Wake County, Sheriff Harrison’s path to 287(g) was similar to Pendergraph’s.

Harrison noticed a growing trend of officers being unable to determine the true identities of foreign-born arrestees. He feared Wake County was setting criminals free with no way of running an accurate background check on foreign nationals.

Harrison’s 287(g) program launched in mid-July, and like many counties with active programs in the state, only his detention officers have been trained by ICE. That means a person’s immigration status is not checked until they are brought to the Wake County Jail on other charges.

The 287(g) program, Harrison said, has been valuable in Wake County for identifying repeat offenders who have committed crimes and been deported numerous times in the past, using aliases and false identification to escape justice.

“We had one in jail the other day that has… been deported 3 times for selling heroin. He was caught the fourth time here in Raleigh by the Raleigh police department for selling heroin. So that’s the benefit of having the ICE database,” Harrison said.

“We would have missed this guy. He had given four different names. How are you going to come up with the right name? And I asked the ICE agent and he just smiled and said, ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do.’”

Note: This is the first installment in NC WANTED’s weekly web series, “Faces Without Borders,” covering the 287(g) program and its impact on North Carolina. We welcome your feedback at ncwanted@ncwanted.com