But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say the drop reflects an overall decrease in illegal immigration, not a lack of commitment to conducting immigration screenings in the jail system. Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Bill Montgomery also say they no longer have any major concerns with ICE’s handling of the program, in which agents check the legal status of every person booked into jail with the goal of deporting immigrants who commit serious crimes.
Arpaio and Montgomery had initially criticized the Department of Homeland Security, saying it wasn’t living up to its commitment to dedicate 50 ICE officers to conduct the immigration screenings at the jails after stripping the duties from the Sheriff’s Office. ICE has placed immigration holds on more than 4,936 immigrants booked into the jails since taking over immigration screenings last December, ICE officials said. So far, those holds have resulted in the removal of 926 criminal immigrants from Dec. 16, 2011, through Sept. 15 of this year, the agency said.
The number of deportations is markedly lower from previous years, when the screenings were being performed by the Sheriff’s Office as part of an agreement with ICE. ICE officials say the decrease is part of a trend that correlated with a significant decrease in illegal immigration overall in Arizona. Since hitting a high of 12,555 in fiscal 2008, the number of immigrants in the county deported through the program, known as 287(g), has been steadily decreasing, according to ICE statistics. In fiscal 2009, ICE deported 8,585 immigrants through the program, followed by 5,327 in 2010 and 3,092 in 2011.
In fiscal 2012, ICE deported 1,434 immigrants, including 508 from Oct. 1 until Dec. 16, when the immigration screenings were still being conducted by the Sheriff’s Office, and the 926 when ICE took over the screenings. Border Patrol apprehensions, a measure of illegal-immigrant traffic, totaled 123,285 in the Tucson Sector, which covers most of Arizona, in fiscal 2011, down from 378,239 in fiscal 2007. Statistics for fiscal 2012, which ended Sept. 30,have not been released yet.
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