# Houston Police Department Revises Immigration Policy after Officer's Death



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*MATT STILES*
_The Houston Chronicle_









Under fire in recent months over its policy toward illegal immigrants, the Houston Police Department is unveiling new procedures today to allow more cooperation with federal agents trying to catch criminals living in the country illegally.
Officers still will not inquire about the immigration status of people they haven't arrested, so the changes are unlikely to quiet critics who have labeled Houston a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants.
But the department is making several key revisions.
An announcement is expected today, less than two weeks after the shooting death of police officer Rodney Johnson caused simmering opposition to the department policy to flare anew. An illegal immigrant who previously had been deported is charged in the slaying.
Among the changes to take effect this week:
The department will hold people detained or arrested for traffic violations or other minor crimes - Class C misdemeanors - if warrant checks show they are wanted by federal agents for defying an order to leave the country or for returning after being deported in connection with a criminal case. Under existing policy, police generally did not hold such people for federal authorities, even if officers were aware of the federal warrants.
The department will allow immigration agents unfettered access to the city's two jails, as they have had in the Harris County jail, and officers will start asking all arrestees whether they are citizens.
Fingerprints of anyone booked into the jails without proper identification will be checked against a national fingerprint database.
That could help officers identify wanted criminals, including people wanted for serious immigration violations, police say.
"There's a pretty solid process now between HPD and the federal authorities to identify and act on people who've been deported from this country because of their criminal behavior," said Executive Assistant Chief Timothy Oettmeier, among a group of police commanders who briefed the Houston Chronicle on the changes.
"We're now in a position to detect and get them back out of here."
Oettmeier and the others acknowledged they can't project how many immigration violators who previously might have been released will be snared under the new policy. Immigration officials say roughly 200,000 such cases are in their database, but only a few such people encounter authorities each year.
Police commanders, who dispute the "sanctuary" title, have been working on the revisions for months with federal prosecutors and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Under the revised procedures, officers still won't attempt to determine the immigration status of people encountered routinely, and won't arrest anyone solely for being in the country illegally - as advocated by supporters of tougher immigration enforcement.
Local versus federal
But police and immigration officials say the immigration status of suspects charged with serious misdemeanors or felonies is routinely determined upon transfer to the county jail.
Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt have said the department doesn't have legal authority in most immigration cases.
They also say the department shouldn't expend its limited manpower on a federal responsibility and that doing so would alienate officers from immigrant communities.
That could make it harder to get immigrants to report crimes or cooperate as witnesses.
"The administration supports giving law enforcement all tools to reduce the risk of crime within their resources," White said.
"Running more checks on the wanted status of people, and more use of the fingerprint database, will tighten up the procedures."
Critic not satisfied
One key department critic, Mary Williams of Protect Our Citizens, a local group trying to change the policy through a voter referendum, charged that the revisions don't go far enough.
She vowed to continue her fight to put a provision in the City Charter permitting police to enforce immigration laws.
"We want officers to have the discretion to ask them the first time," she said, referring to inquiries about citizenship status during routine encounters such as traffic stops.
Williams dismissed the new policies as political posturing.
"When you let the politicians decide, you get baby steps like this thing," she said.
Though the changes likely won't end criticism of the policy, police commanders said the new procedures will make it harder for criminal immigrants to elude detection but also allow the department to maintain its position that officers should have a limited role in immigration matters.
2003 incident resurfaces
The change involving criminal deportees - people forced out of the country because they violated laws here - would prevent incidents like one in October 2003, when officers were forced to release Moises Hernandez Galvan, a 37-year-old illegal immigrant detained after a traffic stop, even though they knew he had returned to the country after deportation.
The incident was not publicized at the time but sparked internal criticism about the department's policy, according to police memos obtained by the Houston Chronicle under the Texas Public Information Act.
"If this suspect had been a deported felon with terrorist ties, then the actions taken in this incident could seriously jeopardize homeland security," Lt. Tom Roman, who is now retired, wrote then-acting Police Chief Joe Breshears.
A reply memo stated that the department would continue its policy of not detaining people arrested on Class C misdemeanors simply because they had immigration warrants.
Under the new policy, police would hold for federal authorities a suspect such as Galvan if it's discovered the suspect is wanted on an immigration warrant.
Bob Rutt, special agent in charge of the Houston office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said his agents will take those suspects from police custody within 12 hours.
"This is very big," he said. "It shows the commitment by HPD to public safety and homeland security."
THE NEW POLICY
Revisions to the Houston Police Department's policy for dealing with illegal immigrants:
To be allowed: Federal immigration agents in city jails, fingerprint checks of all minor offenders who don't have identification, detention of illegal immigrants who returned to the country after deportation for criminal convictions and detention of people who defied previous deportation orders.
Still prohibited: Arrests of people solely because they are in the country illegally, inquiries about immigration status of people not under arrest, working with federal agents on routine immigration enforcement.
Source: Houston Police Department

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