L.A. County plans to check immigration status of all inmates [Updated]

[Updated, 3:15 p.m. All local police agencies in Los Angeles County plan to begin screening the immigration status of all inmates booked into jails.]

Los Angeles County plans to begin checking the immigration status of all inmates booked into its jails this month in an effort to identify and deport more illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Sheriff’s employees will run the inmates’ fingerprints through federal databases to see if they have had any contact with the immigration system and will place holds on those believed to be in the country illegally. Once they have completed serving their sentences, the inmates will be transferred to immigration custody for possible deportation.

The Los Angeles County Jail began working with federal immigration agents in 2006 to screen inmates, but officials said the new federal program is much more accurate than the current system because all inmates — not just the ones who say they are foreign-born — will be checked.

“There is another layer of screening going on,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Kevin Kuykendall. “It’s another tool to increase our effectiveness and make sure we get to everyone we need to get to.”

Illegal immigrant Pedro Espinoza is accused of killing high school football star Jamiel Shaw II last year, one day after Espinoza was released from an L.A. County jail. Espinoza wasn’t red-flagged for an interview because he said during booking that he was born in the U.S.

Earlier this week, Shaw’s family sued the Sheriff’s Department for negligence and wrongful death for releasing Espinoza.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement already launched the program, dubbed Secure Communities, in 48 counties in seven states. Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura will be the first counties in California to participate.

The federal agency plans to expand the program to all county jails and state and federal prisons by the end of 2012. President Obama asked Congress last week for a 30% increase in federal funds for Secure Communities, bringing the annual budget to nearly $200 million.

-- Anna Gorman

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[joe]

It's about time!

[Bee]

"...the new federal program is much more accurate than the current system because all inmates — not just the ones who say they are foreign-born — will be checked."

"Espinoza wasn’t red-flagged for an interview because he said during booking that he was born in the U.S. "

So we ask the criminal where they were born and take their word for it, instead of checking. Unbelievable!

[Vicki]

I'm not quite sure why we are deporting them after they serve their sentence on the taxpayer dime. We need Mexico or whatever country they are from to agree to reimburse us or house their own criminals. I'm sick of illegals sucking us dry. At the very least we need to house them separately to protect our citizens from disease and place them in work camps so they are self supporting while they are here.

[giley1]

The only question that I have is why it took so long to implement this screening of illegal aliens? As a retired law enforcement officer from OC. That used to be SOP when anyone was booked into OC Jail and did not provide authentic ID or was supsected of giving false information. The person was booked and if found to be here illegally he or she would be held for the Border Patrol. We have made this very simple process and rule so convoluted that it is now a obstacle course. Of course we did not have the radical actavist groups to deal with. It is common sense, you commit a crime, are an illegal alien, you do your time and are sent home end of story. The time I am speaking off was between 1971 and 1990.

[BUTTCHEESE]

THE illegal's have been sucking LA dry for more then 20yrs thats no surprise the surprise is that the folks in LA let them ...you folks need to vote for people that are as sick of it as you....laying off teachers...cutting education..laying off police..health care cuts for kids..after school programs cut..BUT illeagals can get all of that for free..without even paying taxes or anybody asking if they are a citizen of the USA...don't want to offend them..

[janet]

It's about time a "screening system" a little more sophisticated than just ASKING AN INMATE WHERE THEY WERE BORN AND TAKING HIS WORD FOR IT is instituted. That has been the sole "procedure" in place by the County Sheriff/ Lee Baca's dept. with the partnership of D A Steve Cooley -- whose dept. is supposed to prosecute felons like Espinoza, not keep releasing them back into the population as they do. This despite the fact that Cooley's office has hundreds of investigators who are just not assigned to this job.

I couldn't believe that this is how Pedro Espinoza escaped detection as an illegal immigrant on a list of known gangmembers no less. Instead this issue was allowed to fester into a totally stupid campaign to blame LAPD and SO40 which had NOTHING to do with this.

It's been a platform for Walter Moore and his City Attorney candidate/ now Trutanich mouthpiece David Berger in the form of Jamiel's Law, to run against the LAPD Chief and Mayor and City Hall. A purely partisan miscarriage of justice to the Shaws and voting public with Sheriff Baca and Cooley happy to sit by and allow this ignorant bashing to take place for their own political motives.

I have to agree with commenter though on concern that just deporting these people AFTER serving time won't solve the underlying problems.

We'll still be paying to incarcerate them and then, if there are no stronger border checks/ provisions at the Federal level than there are now, these released felons will just come right back into the US and continue their lives of crime. There has to be stronger border control AND cooperation agreements with Mexico and Central American governments -- maybe it would be better to send these foreign nationals to their home countries for incarceration in the first place.

[Andrew]

Imminent bankruptcy has FORCED the Illegal Alien
and Gang Capital of the USA to FINALLY start
addressing what Legal Citizens have been
complaining about for years.Its Mexifornication!
Recall the Pachuco Mayor and City Council!

[MaryJ]

Too bad young Jamiel Shaw had to die before this policy was put into place. Funny how they changed their minds after the Shaws filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against LA County, isn't it. Money is the only thing our "represenatives" seem to care about; to hell with the citizens who pay their salaries. Let's hope that there are more lawsuits against more sanctuary cities and counties all over the country, because it seems they are the only things that will get our treasonous "representatives' " attention.

[Kittybarfola]

I see how stupid the county jail is when they took Espinoza's word that he was born here in the U.S. than actually did their jobs and looked into it. I hope the Shaw family wins millions from this. This was a major blunder from the county and should pay.

[FrankNStein]

When juvenile gang-crappers are arrested they must be picked up by their parents. Why don't we check the immigration status of the parents of every gang-crapper that is arrested or detained and then deport those that are criminal aliens?

By doing so there would be a huge decrease in juvenile gang-crappers, as they would have to move back to The Great Criminal Repository Of The South, i.e. Mexico, to be with their criminal-enabler parents.

This would also motivate criminal-alien parents to properly raise their pups, or risk deportion.

[DSL]

You mean they haven't been checking citizenship and deporting criminals all along??? What a joke.

[jojo]

It seems Liberalism has met its limits where political correctness meets fiscal reality. There is no magical funding tree for the "empowering resources" which have been doled out so freely for so long. Only an ever growing backlog of IOU's in a Nation suddenly awash in them.

re-propose Prop 187.
Institute "Whi$tleblower" statutes for those who employ illegals.
Take back the state from the failed state of Mexico.
The alternative isn't pretty.

[Moon]

Rember california the people spoke at the voting poles on prop.187 and they where told the same thing they where told in the old days of the south for voting so what your vote don't mean didly then it occoured to them that 187 pc of the penal code is way out of hand, and the justice dept and the feds are not going with this new cleansen crap that is also going on but the moral for color and race has not change? the state department and the city council are well aware of the behavior as long as the make a showing that they are trying thats all that matters and if a comment like the one I am making comes up you now have a social enviromental problem same as in 1960s 70s 80s 90s and if you think the city is fixing to change your not really from california they know it we know so cut the show because everyone with a brain knows why cops and feds don't get along ?

[Louweegie272]

Incredibly our State Government has not been doing this until now. Jamiel Shaw had to die and countess others including myself have suffered because of crimes committed by illegal immigrants. My car was rear ended by an illegal who did not have car insurance. Being that I couldn't afford "uninsured motorist", I was out of luck, and my car. Hopefully our leaders will finally listen to the people. I will vote "no" on all of the Propositions next week except "F".

[jojo]

one more thing....
all CITIZENS of Ca. should vote NO May 19th on Propositions 1A thru 1F, except 1F. The sooner the state is forced to live within its means the sooner we can begin to reverse the Mexicanization of California.

[Enlightenment]

Arrest ALL illegal aliens and DEPORT them!

[LASteve]

Why s there a question about doing this, why is this not the law in the state of California.

If you're in jail, we need to know if you're in this country legally before you are released. It's not hard, it's not discrimination if everyone is checked out.

There ought to be a law!

[ana]

Good news!
Screen them, and get the "undocumented" out.

[James Los Angeles]

The young Shaw was just one casualty, collateral damage to our senators, mayors, and congressmen. Just like all the other victims that fell prey to the illegal aliens our elected officials have opted to protect above us.

That is why, if you cant afford healthcare, your still obligated to pay or have your credit worthiness destroyed, why those here illegally go in get serviced and walk out with no obligation.

I you used your friends ID for anything without their permission, you would find yourself in court, facing criminal charges.

If you drove a car with fake ID, you would be arrested and the vehicle impounded and held for 30 days.

You cant get a job with a criminal offense on your record, but illegals are hired without question of their potential criminal history, employers cant check their backgrounds, because the information they use is not theirs.

Your child gets third class education, to give the children of illegal immigrants a second class education in comparison to their home country.

Our poverty stricken citizens lost their emergency healthcare, to provide illegal immigrants their primary care.

America's poor are discouraged from welfare/wic/medi-cal while illegal aliens get it without hassle.

Our law enforcement is ordered not to enforce the law when they encounter these individuals, because the mayor doesnt think illegals are here illegally.

[Wandagb]

It is very encouraging to read that these counties are FINALLY doing what is necessary to put the safety of citizens before the interest of alien trespassers.

"Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." - Adam Smith, economist and ethicist

Everything you need to know about immigration and what to do about it humorously told.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBw1nUlf38I

(Roy Beck and NumbersUSA are the "gumball" heroes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ

[BrianSDCA]

This is good news, but the border needs to be controlled to stop deported criminals from returning. They will serve their sentence and be deported, but what is to stop them from coming back?

[bot_feeder]

Now that the leftist regimes in Sacramento and the cities and counties of California have finally demolished the economy to the point where it has no hope of recovery:

They couldn't even lie their way into passing the "stab the taxpayers yet one more time" ballot measures.

Now, after the regimes have inflicted all the pain they could extract from the taxpayers without a popular uprising, they realize they have run out of games to play, and in some cases are beginning to begrudgingly take the actions they should have taken decades ago.

Sorry, Californians, it's all a day late and a dollar short. Put a fork in it, your state is headed toward economic parity with Bangladesh.

And those of us who fled California, realizing that the leftist wackos that run the state and local governments would not rest until they had demolished any remaining vestige of a civilized and prosperous society, well don't expect us to bail you guys out from the consequences of electing extremist wackos to office for all these years.

[bearsonbear]

No one like them But that keep coming back cause people hire them. make laws work.

[Bobby]

"L.A. County plans to check IMMIGRATION STATUS, of all inmates".

Uh, yeahhhhhhhhh, sooooooo. The real story is why haven't they been checking the immigration status of inmates and deporting them, rather than burdening seniors with fixed incomes, and people who have to get up early and work in order to pay the taxes of these illegal alien criminals. But that is a story that has never interested the L.A. Times., is it?

Here is my personal opnion. The L.A. Times and other liberal newspapers have been responsible,( because of their support of massive unchecked and uncontroled illegal immigration), for the deaths of innocent Americans. The little 2 year old girl who was killed after a gang bullet entered the back of the car her parents where driving. The Times and other news agencies called this being in the" wrong place at the wrong time". Aha.

[joeyindc]

It seems that this country has done everything that it can to make sure that the right of illegals from Mexico have been protected at the same time the the rights of citizens of the U.S. have been pushed a side or worse, violated for the benefit of an illegal. The border patrol has been restricted. They have been convicted for doing their jobs! This is outrageous! Illegals have a more powerful voice in this country than we do. This has to end. We have to make it clear that we will only vote for those who will do our bidding. Not the bidding of another land. This is what has been happening for too long. We have to pass laws that deny the citizrenship to children of illegals so that we don't have to tolerate the behavior of them later on. If this sounds harsh. So what. If they want to claim that the U.S. is separating families by deporting people then someone should remind them of the fact that they separated themselves from the families they left in Mexico they came here to support. The deportees can bring their families home with them if they choose to. This isn't our fault. They knew what they were doing. They took the risk. We didn't ask for this kind of risk. We have the right to deny people entry to our country. This is our right. We shouldn't have to feel sorry for it.