I read  and read titles and I couldn't find a good article for me or at least interesting... but finally I read this title, "What role does the county have in immigration and deportation?", posted the last Tuesday February 11, 2014 in Austin American Statesman and I could remember what I have passed with my husband during 6 years, being apart for immigration. He was not deported and never he was here before, but we had a hard time while he was getting the correct documents to be legal in this country. Therefore, always that I read something like that, always that I have to see a undocumented person arrested my heart broke in half. My husband and I have a child, a kid that for 5 years want to be with his dad and I was waiting for 6 years  to have his support and love as a family, thank God it could be possible the last year and we now are together, but what about the rest of the people? what about those families that has to left a life behind and come to this country? I have lost a lot of friends like that for deportation, they are treat like criminals. Unfortunately, we can do too much for it, and I don't think that someday the U.S government will do it.  I pray for my family for those families that each morning have to wake up and think about their children being far away from them. That is my opinion I cannot have other one when I see kids crying outside of a jail or through a window seeing their parents arrested I just cannot.


I just want make sure you read the whole article I had to pay to read it but it only last 24 hours therefore, I would like to make sure.
complete article

VIEWPOINTS Q&A: IMMIGRATION

What role does the county have in immigration and deportation?

Posted: 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014

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By Editorial Board - Special to the American-Statesman

On Feb. 3, six demonstrators protesting deportations were arrested after blocking the entrance to the Travis County jail in downtown Austin. On Tuesday night, some of the same protesters gathered in front of the Travis County sheriff’s headquarters for a vigil in honor of families separated by deportation.
The group wants Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton to reconsider a program called Secure Communities, which helps the federal government identify potential deportation targets by running fingerprints of people who have been booked on various charges through federal databases. Fingerprints are regularly collected after all arrests.

Hamilton, who has met on various occasions with immigrant rights advocates, said the protesters in early February asked that the sheriff’s office stop working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which runs the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program.
Prior to Tuesday’s vigil, we sat down and had a conversation about S-Comm with Hamilton. Excerpts of his answers are below:
How was it decided to allow the S-Comm program to operate in the Travis County jail?
The S-Comm is in every jail in the country. It was mandated that it be in every jail by January 2013. They did segments throughout the country. We started in June 2009.
When you say “they”?
The federal government. I believe Congress because there is no opting out. People have tried to opt out, but everybody is tied into S-Comm.
There are legal professionals who say that participation in the program is not mandatory. You say it is mandatory. How is this possible?
There is confusion. What they are saying is that to detain a person for 48 hours is optional.
In (the law) it says that a retainer is a request. Then you go down to (another section) it says, you shall maintain custody an individual for 48 hours. So it’s confusing there. You have a request and then a shall. Everyone in law enforcement knows the difference between a shall and a may. This says shall.
Are there any funding incentives for participating in S-Comm?
No. But when we detain a federal prisoner for ICE, we do get a portion of the cost (refunded) for keeping that individual inside our jail. And what that amount is, I don’t know. I don’t know the formula. I don’t even think my research and planning department understands the formula. If you talk to folks around the country, they don’t understand it either. It’s for federal prisoners. It’s not a directly from ICE but it for all federal prisoners. ICE is federal.
Describe the entire process for possible detention:
Let’s use any officer from any of the local 28 to 30 law enforcement agencies here. So, the officer pulls a person over, let’s say for speeding. And that person possibly has a warrant. Or the officer finds drugs in the car, let’s go with that example. The officer takes you to Central Booking because of the warrant, not the speeding. The person pulled over is fingerprinted. Those fingerprints are sent to the Austin Police Department and the Department of Public Safety. DPS and APD then send the fingerprints to FBI. FBI shares those fingerprints with their sister agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Agency and ICE. At that time, if the individual has been in contact with ICE before. That’s the only way that ICE could have that individual’s fingerprints in the system, if they’ve come in contact with ICE before. Then ICE will call in a detainer or do something over the computer for a detainer and asks us to hold that individual for 48 hours. The next day, ICE comes in and interviews the individual. The 48 hours we are to detain the person for ICE start after the person is finished dealing with local charges.
So, not everyone who is an undocumented immigrant and gets arrested gets handed over to ICE?
Oh no. And you can get the real numbers of persons arrested and persons actually detained, off the ICE website. The numbers are there. But we don’t know who ICE is deporting. We don’t keep data on that.
Do you hear from deportation proponents on those numbers?
Oh yeah, they go nuts. They want us to arrest even more. They want us to actually target job sites.
What do you think of the fact that families are being separated because of deportations?
That has been asked before. About the 19 families a week being being split up because of deportation. I’m very sympathetic with that. I’m also sympathetic to the 12,232 people that, during the same time since we implemented S-Comm, go to the penitentiary and 53 families a week are affected, they’re being split too. I’m not the one sending these people to prison. That’s ICE and the judge making those decisions.
Going back to the possibility of people with light infractions, like a busted headlight, who end up being deported?
We have a strict policy that we don’t ask a person’s immigration status. We don’t care about that. But maybe a busted taillight stop led to something else, a warrant on this individual, drugs in the car, intoxication.