gaithersblog.net

Update: Mocoprogressive has more on the driving-without-a-license issue.

Ernesto Londoño writes in the Washington Post, Authorities Extradite Wrong Person, Stranding Tenn. Man in Gaithersburg

“It was horrible,” said Rice, 35, whose legal name is Tommie Lee Simpson. “I spent Christmas and New Year’s in jail with people who were in jail for murder. And I work at a children’s hospital.”

Rice remains in Gaithersburg, trying to get the money to return home.

The ordeal began the morning of Dec. 15 when Rice was pulled over near Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital while on his way to work. A Vanderbilt University police officer charged him with driving on a suspended license — an offense that can mean jail time in Tennessee — and drove him to jail.

More on this aspect later.

Rice said a Nashville officer asked him at one point why he was acting so calm if he had been wrongly detained.

“My faith is strong, and I know I didn’t commit these crimes,” he said he told the officer.

Rice was represented by a Nashville public defender during a Dec. 20 hearing before a magistrate. He said he was advised by the attorney to waive his right to fight extradition in court because the process could keep him in jail several weeks.

After running his fingerprints, officials realized that Rice’s legal name was one of the aliases the actual fugitive has used, said Montgomery County Sheriff Raymond M. Kight. Rice was sent to a homeless shelter and later went to a Gaithersburg hotel. He said he is hoping relatives will send him money for the trip home.

Kight said his office is going to make an effort to get Rice home. “We definitely owe him a ride back to Tennessee and an apology,” he said.

But Rice has other worries, too. “I don’t know if I’m going to get my job back or not,” he said last night.

Now, one of the more interesting things about this story is the bit about how, in Tennessee, you can go to jail for driving on a suspended license. Compare this to what Ruben Castaneda reports in this Story from January 2nd of last year in the Washington Post:

The number of people driving in Maryland without a license has spiked dramatically in recent years, with many of the offenders cited in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, according to a summary of a report released by a state delegate.

During the fiscal year that ended in June 2002, 19,878 citations were issued; in the fiscal year that ended in June 2005, 30,624 were issued, an increase of 54 percent, according to figures released by state Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery).

Simmons released the findings as he prepares to introduce legislation that would make driving without a license an offense punishable by incarceration in Maryland. In the District and Virginia, driving without a license can land a motorist in jail.

Simmons said the legislation does not target any group. But an advocate for the rights of illegal immigrants said the legislation, if passed, would harm them.

Officials in the District and Virginia said figures were not readily available on how many people in those jurisdictions have been cited for driving without a license in recent years.

In Maryland, driving without a license carries a $315 fine but no threat of jail time, even for multiple offenses.

“You never even have to show up in court,” Simmons said in an interview. “All you have to do is keep paying” the fine.

When the state legislative session begins Jan. 11, Simmons said, he plans to introduce legislation that would require people charged with driving without a license to appear in court and face penalties that would include 90 days in jail for a first offense and up to a year in jail for a second offense.

Revised: Not having realized at first that this article was from 2006 — or, more accurately, forgetting that it was now 2007 — I initially thought this was a bill for the upcoming session. Once this was pointed out to me I took a look to see what happened with this bill. In fact, it appears to have been passed (in amended form) and signed by the governor. The law would have taken effect in October of last year. Quoting the new law (see Maryland Code/TRANSPORTATION /TITLE 27. VEHICLE LAWS - PENALTIES; DISPOSITION OF FINES AND FORFEITURES/§ 27-101. Penalties for misdemeanor.):

(y) Violation of § 16-101.- Any person who is convicted of a violation of § 16-101 of this article (”Drivers must be licensed”) is subject to:

• (1) For a first offense, a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than 60 days or both; and
• (2) For a second or subsequent offense, a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than 1 year or both.

This is despite opposition from CASA de Maryland. Quoting the Post from a year ago:

But Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa of Maryland, a Silver Spring-based immigrants’ rights organization, said: “Even though Delegate Simmons says he is not targeting any group, it is very clear this is going to impact the immigrant community, Latinos and other immigrants.”

Torres said he thinks illegal immigrants account for a significant part of the increase in unlicensed drivers in the state. “Regardless of whether they have driver’s licenses, it is how people take their kids to school or go to work. That is the reality,” Torres said.

Virginia and other states have laws that bar illegal immigrants from obtaining a license, but Maryland does not. However, Torres said, the state Motor Vehicle Administration often takes four to six months to grant driver’s licenses to immigrants, even if they are in the country legally. Immigrant applicants must rely on foreign documents, such as passports, to obtain driver’s licenses.

“The solution is not to penalize people who are driving without driver’s licenses,” Torres said. “The solution is to speed up the process at MVA to assure that legal and undocumented workers have access to driver’s licenses faster.”

I think that many of us can think of other solutions…

Update: The full (but redacted) 109-page DOJ-OIG report is available (PDF format) from the what’s new page on the Department of Justice website.

Jerry Seper writes in today’s Washington Times, Illegals become repeat criminals:

Criminal aliens set free on the streets of America — instead of being deported after serving their time — are being rearrested as many as six more times by U.S. authorities, according to a government audit released yesterday.

But the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General said it did not know how many of 262,105 illegals in the audit, who had been charged with a crime and then released, had been rearrested.

Mr. Fine noted that although the limited audit did not find any instances of “outright failure” to cooperate with Homeland Security in the removal of criminal aliens from the United States, a review of the 100 criminal histories “produced results that, if indicative of the full population of criminal aliens identified, suggest that the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high.”

The 91-page audit, which was requested by Congress, said the limited sampling found that of the 100 selected aliens, 73 had an average of six arrests each after being released from custody. They were arrested, collectively, 429 times on 878 charges, ranging from traffic violations and trespassing to drug crimes, burglary, robbery, assault and weapons violations.

The audit found that local jurisdictions “prioritize enforcement of state and local laws, while sometimes permitting or encouraging law-enforcement officers” to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The report also found that among 164 state and local agencies surveyed:

• 30 jurisdictions do not generally ask those arrested about their immigration status.
• 17 said they do not inform ICE when they have someone they suspect may be an illegal alien in custody. Some agencies said they do not inform ICE about possible illegals in custody because they don’t think ICE will respond.
• 18 jurisdictions do not alert ICE before releasing undocumented criminal aliens.

Update 2:

A few excerpts from the report:

• Thirty jurisdictions reported they do not generally ask arrestees about their immigration status. However, some jurisdictions explained that arrestees are asked about their country of birth rather than immigration status, and others stated that immigration status is determined during the booking process rather than at the time of arrest. [16]
• Seventeen respondents reported they do not inform ICE when they have someone in custody who they believe may be an undocumented alien. However, many of those 17 jurisdictions added qualifying remarks. For example, some agencies stated that ICE agents come to the state or local institution to review files, which would obviate the need to inform ICE. Other jurisdictions criticized ICE and stated they do not inform ICE about possible undocumented aliens in their custody because they believe ICE will not respond.
• Eighteen jurisdictions reported they do not alert ICE prior to releasing undocumented criminal aliens from custody. However, several of those jurisdictions added clarifying remarks. For example, one respondent stated they are generally not aware of the immigration status of individuals in custody. Another reported that releases of inmates must occur within a very short time after a local court orders the release. Another jurisdiction stated its officials do not alert ICE prior to releasing an undocumented criminal alien from custody “unless ICE asks us to.”

[16] Thirty-four jurisdictions checked the “no” box on the questionnaire, but 4 of those 34 jurisdictions added comments stating that they are custodial institutions and their officers do not have arrest authority.

Even though the respondents to our questionnaire did not report releasing undocumented criminal aliens because of insufficient local resources, we noted an issue regarding the lack of space available to ICE to detain aliens in custody. In an April 2006 report [link mine –GB], the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security reported, “[the Detention and Removal Operations (DRO)] estimates that in FY 2007 there will be 605,000 foreign-born individuals admitted to state correctional facilities and local jails during the year for committing crimes in the U.S.[26] Of this number, DRO estimates half (302,500) will be removable aliens. Most of these incarcerated aliens are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences because DRO does not have the resources to identify, detain, and remove these aliens under its Criminal Alien Program (CAP). It is estimated that DRO would need an additional 34,653 detention beds, at an estimated cost of $1.1 billion, to detain and remove [them].”[27]

The DHS Inspector General went on to state, “additionally, DRO’s ability to detain and remove illegal aliens with final orders of removal is impacted by: (1) the propensity of illegal aliens to disobey orders to appear in immigration court; (2) the penchant of released illegal aliens with final orders to abscond; (3) the practice of some countries to block or inhibit the repatriation of its citizens; and (4) two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions

which mandate the release of criminal and other high-risk aliens 180 days after the issuance of the final removal order except in ‘Special Circumstances.’ Collectively, the bed space, personnel and funding shortages coupled with the other factors, has created an unofficial ‘mini-amnesty’ program for criminal and other high-risk aliens.”

[26] At our exit conference, representatives of DRO stated that references to “DRO” in the DHS OIG report would in this context be more appropriately read as “ICE.”

[27] Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General. Detention and Removal of Illegal Aliens: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), OIG-06-033, April 2006, p. 2.

“The penchant of released illegal aliens with final orders to abscond”: Well, duh.

Seventeen respondents reported they do not generally inform ICE when they have someone in custody who they believe may be an undocumented criminal alien. However, many of those 17 jurisdictions added qualifying remarks. In some instances, they were critical of a perceived lack of response on the part of ICE, but there were other explanatory factors as well.

• “Our experience has shown that ICE is not going to respond anyway.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “On every occasion we attempt to inform ICE but ICE does not always respond.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “Past history has shown that they will rarely pick the subjects up for transport.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “Depends on nature of crime.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “ICE agents come into our facility on a regular basis and review our records of undocumented aliens.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “Sheriff’s deputies do not inform ICE. Detention staff will notify ICE if information obtained from a criminal history rap sheet or information obtained from our local database alerts [our] Department of previous contacts with ICE (releases to ICE or previously deported criminal alien).” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “This is a sheriff’s department function.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “Law enforcement officers may contact ICE but jail staff do not. We have an ICE employee [who] regularly reviews inmate rosters.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]
• “Most patrol officers do not have the time or know the number in order to inform ICE.” [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REDACTED]