Dozens of foreign-born felons in city jail without deportation holds

Ann Imse:

Foreign-born criminals who are supposed to be a prime target for federal immigration agents are instead slipping through the deportation net, an examination of Denver jail and Colorado court records shows.

The Rocky Mountain News looked at the records of inmates in the Denver County Jail May 17.

On that day, a Tuesday, federal immigration agents had ordered 35 of the inmates held for possible deportation, but there were no deportation holds on at least 94 other foreign-born inmates being held for major felonies.

Agents had placed detainers on two inmates listed on the roster as accused of murder and three being held for sexual assault. That meant they'd be turned over to immigration for deportation hearings in a federal immigration court after they were released or served their time on any criminal convictions.

But many foreign-born inmates had no deportation detainers, including at least three being held on murder charges, four on sexual assault charges, five on charges of sexual assault on a child, and dozens more charged in major crimes including assault, kidnapping and drug trafficking.

After the News brought the names of these inmates to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, the agency placed immigration holds on nine of the 12 listed in jail records with murder or sexual assault charges, according to jail records. At least one of the remaining three turned out to be a U.S. citizen.

The jail officials could not check the rest of the 94 for new immigration holds on Friday for lack of time.

ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said agents review the files of everyone on the list of "foreign born" that a detention facility provides.

Rusnok said some of the 94 from May 17 were U.S. citizens and not under ICE purview, but he declined to say how many.

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