By NC WANTED Staff

Posted: Oct 8, 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 Fiery Debate

In North Carolina, recent flare-ups surrounding the ICE-sponsored 287(g) local immigration enforcement program have provided hot topics for TV newscasts and community forums. Public statements have become more inflammatory, escalating harsher criticism of U.S. immigration laws and how those laws are enforced.

This problem did not happen overnight.

In our previous chapter, we reported that at least 11 million people are in the U.S. illegally with up to 200,000 residing in North Carolina. Blame it on inadequate border security, illegal hiring practices or a long-term habit of looking the other way. It has taken decades to amass millions of illegal aliens.

The enormity of the crisis has prompted a surge in applications for programs authorized under a section in the Immigration and Nationality Act called 287(g). These 287(g) programs allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to partner with local law enforcement agencies to train officers to process foreign nationals.

Even with 287(g) programs, the likelihood of identifying, arresting and deporting 11 million people seems unrealistic at best, and could set the stage for a humanitarian nightmare.

What should be the proper way for law enforcement to root out an entire community of manual laborers? When undocumented parents get deported, what happens to their children who are natural born U.S. citizens? If all 11 million aliens cannot be deported, who determines who stays and who goes?

These are questions for legislative debates. But do not expect solutions or agreements any time soon. Illegal immigration is a political wedge issue, and some lawmakers detest the way our current laws are enforced, including enforcement methods authorized under 287(g).

U.S. Congressman David Price recently contacted NC WANTED to complain about one of our stories involving 287(g). The story profiled ICE Executive Jim Pendergraph and his assertion that Price was crafting a congressional budget to prevent ICE from expanding immigration enforcement in the workplace, and also prevent ICE from keeping up with the demand for new 287(g) programs.

Price adamantly denied Pendergraph’s accusations. “The budget has been growing, it just so happens that we don’t need an increase for next year [2009],” he said from his office in Washington. “There’s plenty of money in the budget to fund every pending application, of course all those applications may not prove fundable.”

In another response, Price seemed to suggest that local officers in the 287(g) program should not strictly enforce immigration laws or be so closely aligned with ICE. Price’s remarks were in response to our question about a lesser-known aspect of 287(g), which allows local officers to join a community task force alongside ICE agents, identifying and apprehending criminal aliens throughout a region. “Look, law enforcement is gonna have to make some judgments, you know, about their relationship to the immigrant community,” Price said from his office in Washington.

Price added, “Our local law enforcement people are not just the long arm of the immigration enforcement office.”

Sheriffs Taking the Heat

Sheriff Terry Johnson of Alamance County is no stranger to bad press. Allegations that he has targeted illegal aliens in raids at the Department of Motor Vehicles or in voter registration checks have appeared in various newspapers.

The Burlington Times News reported in 2004 that Johnson vowed to go door-to-door investigating fraudulent voter registrations. In 2002, according to an April 2007 article in the News and Observer, Johnson received national attention for how the article characterized him as “storming” the Department of Motor Vehicles and arresting over 100 Hispanics who were getting driver’s licenses with false documents.

Sheriff Johnson sat down for an interview with NC WANTED. He expressed frustration that the local papers had misquoted him and mischaracterized the intent of what he said during a county commissioners meeting.

“I know why this particular paper did. I am certainly not trying to get into politics here, but they’re democratic controlled. Whereas another paper was in there and printed exactly like I said. I had no intentions of going door to door, but that’s how sometimes the media will turn things around,” he said.

Johnson emphasized what he actually said during the meeting, “I do not have the man-power to go door to door and that’s the only way you could verify every voter on the registration list. And I don’t have the man-power to do it and I won’t do it.”

NC WANTED obtained these Minutes from the Alamance County County Commissioner’s meeting held October 4, 2004. In a section of the Minutes titled “Illegal Aliens,” it read, “Sheriff Terry Johnson reported that illegal aliens have been applying for driver’s licenses and registering to vote when they obtain their license. A list he sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement of 125 registered voters identified 87 as illegal aliens. He stated he is planning to pursue the voter registration fraud.”

Despite those who view Johnson as a renegade sheriff with a personal vendetta against Latinos, Johnson told NC WANTED that when it comes to 287(g), he has nothing to hide. He opens his doors to anyone who has questions about his department profiling or mistreating Latinos in any way.

Sheriff Johnson welcomed NC WANTED into his detention facility to see first-hand how his 287(g) program operates.

“You have those bleeding heart liberals that feel that if they say enough, it’s going to change people’s views on the 287(g) program and what we’re trying to do here,” Johnson said. “They can say what they want about Terry Johnson. They can say what they want about Alamance County but I’ll put this agency up against any agency, not only in this state but in this nation.”

Johnson also found himself in hot water with advocacy groups for the April 2007 News and Observer article that quoted him describing Mexicans in his county, “Their values are a lot different – their morals – than what we have here,” he was quoted as saying. “In Mexico, there’s nothing wrong with having sex with a 12-, 13-year-old girl… They do a lot of drinking in Mexico.”

Heavy drinking is not exclusive to Mexico. Just visit a campus frat party anywhere in America. And while it is true that 12 is the age of sexual consent in most of Mexico, some express outrage that Sheriff Johnson’s statements only further a negative stereotype about Hispanic people.

Tony Asion, the executive director of Raleigh-based Latino advocacy group El Pueblo, blasted the sheriff for his comments.

“In Mexican culture, it is not legal to get drunk and rape children any more than it is here… there are sick people in this country and there are sick people all over the world and they should be punished,” he told NC WANTED. “But how could anybody in this political process or anybody for that matter blame a whole race for what one person does… that’s pretty small-minded.”

In response, Sheriff Johnson told NC WANTED that he was again taken out of context by the newspaper, “I explained to them and so did my public information officer, that we would be talking in terms of the criminally illegal aliens that we were coming in contact with as far as your drug trafficking, as far as other crimes here that were occurring in Alamance County,” he said, “not Hispanics in general.”

Asion sees it differently. He alleges that the Alamance County sheriff’s office has a tradition of harassment and racial profiling.

This summer, the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office got negative attention for two 287(g) arrests. The first was the June arrest of a mother driving along I-85 with no driver’s license. According to reports, she was taken into custody around 2 a.m., while her three children sat on the side of the highway for 8 hours until their father arrived from Maryland to get them. They were reported as 14, 10 and 6 years old.

There has been some discrepancy as far as what really happened that night. Deputies maintain that the mother gave them permission to leave the children with an adult passenger in the car, who fled the scene in fear of also being arrested and deported.

According to one report, the children denied that the deputies asked the mother’s permission.

In another incident last July, Alamance County deputies arrested Marxavi Angel Martinez for using false documents to gain employment at the county library. Martinez’s parents brought her to the United States from Mexico when she was a toddler. She lived her entire life in Alamance County. Because 287(g) documents are not public record, it is not clear whether Martinez was eventually removed from the country, but almost all 287(g) detainees get deported.

The sheriff’s office stated that proper procedure was followed in both cases.

Asion, who was a Delaware state trooper for 20 years, said that in principle, he supports the idea behind the 287(g) program, but he believes that sheriffs like Johnson have taken their power too far.

“This is 2008 for goodness sakes and we’re still doing the sheriffing of the 1950s and it’s sad that we continue to do this kind of thing without looking and seeing the danger or the harm that we’re doing to our society,” Asion said.

Sheriff Johnson isn’t the only one who’s felt the heat.

Recently, Sheriff Bizzell of Johnston County was quoted in the News and Observer calling Mexicans “trashy” and saying that they were “breeding like rabbits” in Johnson County. Bizzell has since apologized, and it appears a vocal majority of Bizzell’s constituents have risen up to support him, despite calls for his resignation.

For those invested in the plight of the Latino community, Bizzell’s remarks have left an angry scar that does not appear to be healing.

Myths and Extremes: “Us” versus “Them”

Sparring between sheriff’s offices and advocacy groups has emerged as a common headline grabber in the 287g debate. But when the sensationalism subsides, are the two sides that far apart in their views on immigration enforcement?

“I’ve been a cop and I probably will be a cop all my life in my heart and I have absolutely no sympathy for somebody who commits a crime that either hurts somebody or somebody is being used or injured in any way,” Asion said. “If they deport somebody who committed this crime, I have absolutely no problem with that… and I don’t think any Latino would either because, contrary to popular belief, most Latinos are into abiding by the law and we don’t want the criminals here either.

Sheriff Donnie Harrison of Wake County sees the 287(g) program as a necessary option in a country so far behind the curve in its immigration policies.

“If the federal government could come up with a way that they could come into this country and if they’re stopped for whatever it may be… they can present something to us and say, ‘I am this person here. He’s my thumbprint.’ I don’t have a problem with that, but it’s out of my control… Should there be a better way? Absolutely. I wish there was a better way. I’ve got a jail full. We don’t need any more in our jails,” he said.

On the other hand, he argued, misunderstandings of what the program is all about have created a lot of fear in the community, reflecting negatively on law enforcement officers who are faced with the difficult task of identifying and tracking the people they arrest.

Without ICE’s fingerprint database, local authorities have no way of properly identifying undocumented criminals, who may be wanted in other states, counties or countries, Harrison said.

The Durham Chief from Puerto Rico: Turn Down the Heat

Asion said the fear in the community about 287(g) is “enormous,” mostly due to a lack of information about what rights illegal aliens do or do not have. Harrison, Johnson and Durham chief of police Jose Lopez have all stressed that law-abiding Latinos have no reason to be afraid.

Lopez, who is from Puerto Rico, has had the unique advantage of being able to soothe the concerns of Latinos in his community, who see him as an ally.

Under Chief Lopez, Durham was the first city in North Carolina to appoint one of its investigators to the 287(g) task force in Raleigh even though Durham does not have a 287(g) program in its detention center.

“My big concern is that when we report about the 287(g) program… individuals in our community who are undocumented will look at it and it gets translated out of English, it just translates to: ‘We’re looking to identify and send back undocumented individuals to their country,’ which is furthest from the truth,” Lopez told NC WANTED.

“It’s very important that we not alienate ourselves from the people that are actually in this country physically. We need to use them the same way we use any citizen here, as far as reporting crime, being victims and being witnesses,” Lopez continued. “We have to recognize it and not hide behind the fact that they shouldn’t be here; realize that they are here.”

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

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What is 287(g)?

According to ICE: “The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), effective September 30, 1996, added Section 287(g), performance of immigration officer functions by state officers and employees, to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This authorizes the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), provided that the local law enforcement officers receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of sworn U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.”

More from ICE: “The cross-designation between ICE and state and local patrol officers, detectives, investigators and correctional officers working in conjunction with ICE allows these local and state officers: necessary resources and latitude to pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling and money laundering; and increased resources and support in more remote geographical locations.”