Immigration activists content with recommendations to city

6/23/2008 9:26 PM
By: Jessica Sondgeroth


An ACLU attorney and immigration rights' advocate sighed with some relief after the City of Austin Human Rights Commission passed seven recommendations Monday to city council regarding immigration control at Travis County Jail.

The recommendations have little to do with the federal agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and their authority at Travis County Jail, or the jail's policies, but rather they attempt to lower the number of immigrants who end up in jail for minor offenses.

"It is symbolically meaningful and politically meaningfully, in that,with this and the Commission on Immigrant Affairs putting forth a resolution, they have the political backing to go back to the sheriff, go back to the Travis County commissioners, to work further on reforms that are feasibly, legally and politically doable," ACLU of Texas Central Texas Chapter President Debbie Russell said.

The commission recommended, rather than arresting persons involved in non-violent Class A or Class B misdemeanors and taking them to jail, the Austin Police Department and the Travis County Sheriff's Department should issue citations and court summons at their discretion, as indicated in Texas House Bill 2391.

Austin Immigrants' Rights Coalition member Caroline Keating-Guerra said 60 percent of those issued immigration holds were originally detained for misdemeanors.

From Jan. 1 through March 31, ICE agents placed 763 county inmates on immigration holds, a 400 percent increase from the same period last year.

The commission recommended other law enforcement practices that would eliminate or limit jail time served for minor offenses, such as traffic related warrants.

They suggested the city implement a public information campaign to inform the immigrant community of the legal process and how, when, and where to pay traffic citations to avoid arrest warrants.

The commission further recommended the creation of a city task force to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for the Criminal Alien Program and its affects on APD, the Travis County, Austin, and the Health and Human Services Department. The Criminal Alien Program focuses on identifying criminal aliens incarcerated within federal, state and local facilities and issuing orders for deportation before the end of their sentence.

While the recommendations do not translate into law, activists said it relays a strong message to city council from a community that has worked hard over the months to fight a policy change they say promotes racial profiling by police officers.

"We've heard of ICE officials targeting people just because they look Latino or speak Spanish, which doesn't necessarily mean they're an immigrant, but this is clearly racial profiling," Keating-Guerra said.

Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton has said the policy change will keep the streets safer and help enforce the letter of the law.

Groups opposing ICE in Travis County Jail argue that the move will not necessarily make the streets safer because more people will be reluctant to report crimes.

"The biggest [issue] being, and the most relevant to the city level, is that because of this new policy, immigrants are now afraid to go report crimes to the police," Keating-Guerra said. "That goes for witnesses and victims of crime."

Russell said the major problem, which the ACLU attorneys are still working through, regards jurisdiction in allowing a federal agency to have free access in a county prison.

"I think there's also a lot of assumptions from the County Sheriff's office that they have to give certain access, and I think they're assuming too much in favor of ICE having access," Russell said. "I think they could limit the hours that they are allowed to go into the jail, and if the sheriff sees it as his job to process individuals, if they're getting the way, he can limit their access, so we just need to get down in writing how much so."

Russell said the ACLU has attorneys working on the matter and expects some kind of action in the next few weeks.

There is no indication when the Austin City Council will address the recommendations.