FAIRHOPE — Outgoing Baldwin County Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack said illegal immigration policies are impacting jails by causing a “flow problem.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has two classifications for undocumented inmates: an “ICE hold” and an “ICE detainer.”
Holds allow suspected illegals who have been charged with a local crime to be detained for 72 hours.
“In that 72 hours, they do an interview to determine their status from their country,” Mack explained. “How did they get into the country? Where they're living now?”
They are given a court date and released after the hold.
"They give them a court date to say that you have to appear before an immigration court like two or three years from now in New Orleans,” Mack said. “So, once they make bond or get out on the charges that we've currently charged them with, they go back into the community, and you can just answer the question yourself, ‘How many of those people are going to show up in New Orleans two years from now for an immigration hearing?”
Mack said there is a revolving door of ICE holds.
The ICE detainer is for convicted felons in the United States from another country. Mack said they are sometimes wanted in another country, or the status of their crime is so egregious that it would rise to the level of a major felony.
Those on an ICE detainer are transferred from the jail to a federal facility, where they await an immigration hearing.
Mack said there is not typically a high number of ICE detainers because the United States is not deporting many people under current policy.
“We may average one or two a month out of all the ones that we're doing and so that's where the policies have got to change,” he said. “15 years ago, when we were arresting somebody that was illegal, they went from Baldwin County Jail back to Mexico. I mean, they were going. There was a process.”
“But now, under the current administration, we call it catch and release,” Mack continued. “Most of them, we’re catching them, we're documenting them, we fingerprint them, we run the background check, then once ICE releases that hold, then they're released.”
Mack said there are undocumented immigrants from all over the world, including Venezuela, Argentina, Haiti and Jamaica. He added that the most frequent crimes committed by illegal aliens in Baldwin County are drug crimes, alcohol-related crimes and domestic crimes.
“A lot of these people, they'll live in groups,” he explained. “So, it might not be two or three people living in a house or a mobile home, it may be six, eight, 10, and it just sometimes creates that atmosphere for a domestic violence situation and things of that nature.”
Mack said there have also been felony crimes, including shootings, but most are misdemeanors.
As he prepares to take a more legislative role as the executive director of the Alabama Sheriffs Association, Mack said the issue will remain a federal one.
“I know that there's been legislation that has been considered in other states, particularly Texas, a law that the sheriff could arrest an illegal immigrant and put him in jail,” Mack outlined. “But then the issue becomes, ‘What do you do with him?’ Because the sheriff can't deport him, and if the feds don't take over the case, now you're filling up the county jails with illegal immigrants.
“So, it may sound really good on the front end, it's getting them off the street, but what you're going to be doing is you're going to be filling up all the jails, and you're going to have sheriffs that are going to be running out of bed space," he added.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment email erica.thomas@1819news.com.
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