Illegal aliens suspected of fraud go free
By Philip Holsinger
The Daily Citizen
Four illegal aliens suspected of felony crimes walked free from White County Sheriff's offices Wednesday after federal immigration officials explained the U.S. government cannot automatically expel the men just because they are illegal.
The four men, all Mexican nationals, were arrested by Sheriff's detectives Tuesday on misdemeanor offenses and later found to be in possession of suspected fraudulent identification documents.
In addition, following interviews of the subjects, detectives suspect the four men may be involved in an ongoing case of check fraud involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"I had to hand this guy his car keys and allow him to walk out the door," Detective Randy Rudisill said. "He is not even supposed to be in this country, and he admitted he was here illegally, but we can't do a thing about it. Our hands are tied."
Wednesday the four men, having been found to be illegal aliens, were allowed to walk free from the department, suffering little more than a handful of misdemeanor charges and what amounted to mostly empty threats of deportation from federal agents, Rudisill said.
"The check fraud case is ongoing and we don't have enough in that case to charge anyone or we would have booked them on that," Rudisill said. "We thought, though, that once it was determined these guys were in the United States illegally that the proper authorities would deal with them and that would be that."
But no one would deal with them, or could deal with them, Rudisill said.
"We called the U.S. Border Patrol in Louisiana and they sent us to a Border Patrol office in Little Rock," Rudisill said. "And when we called the guy in Little Rock he sent us to customs and immigration office. They sent us to another office, called ICE (the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) which is now a part of the Department of Homeland Security."
Wednesday morning ICE agents arrived in Searcy to interview the subjects and assist the detectives. Detectives believed they would soon be relieved of the responsibility of the illegals, Rudisill said.
Then they were shocked when ICE agents explained their hands were tied, that they would not be taking the illegals with them, that they didn't know what to tell the detectives about what to do with the illegals except to set them free.
Lacking felony charges, Rudisill said the ICE agents explained to him and fellow detectives that customs and immigration could not expend the resources to deal with the subjects.
Danielle Sheahan, spokesperson for Customs and Border protection, said she could not comment definitively on a case involving ICE agents, but that hearing the details provided her of the four White County illegals, she would suspect limited resources had something to do with the lack of action by the agents.
"The ICE agents have priorities and limited resources," she said. "The more serious the crime committed by an illegal alien the more important the subject becomes."
Temple Black, spokesperson for ICE in Memphis, said the reason ICE agents did not retain the subjects may have been because they were issued a summons to appear before a judge regarding their illegal status.
Without felony charges pending, Black said, an illegal alien is processed only for the offense of being in the country illegally, and the way he is processed is much in the same way a person is processed for, say, a traffic violation.
"It may be that they were given a notice to appear," Black said. "To prove they are legal. If there was a felony charge, then the Sheriff takes them into custody and they go through the United States court system."
"When we arrested them they had proper documentation," Rudisil said. "They had legitimate Arkansas state identification cards and other documents to verify the names they gave. But something wasn't right."
When detectives checked the mens' immigration status by running their fingerprints through the AFIS (automated fingerprinting identification system) nothing turned up, Rudisil said.
"When Mexican nationals enter the United States we are told they must be fingerprinted and photographed before they can enter the country," he said. "The men admitted they were from Mexico, and because nothing was returned with the AFIS check, it is safe to say the subjects are illegal."
Using a bi-lingual Sheriff's dispatcher, recent Harding University graduate Mica Timms, detectives interviewed the subjects and were eventually led by one of the men to a cache of identification documents providing each of the four men with multiple identifications, Rudisil said.
"When we were interviewing them, one guy would give me a name and then I would show him an identification card with his photo and another name and he would point to that and say that was him also," Rudisil said. "But once we had the pile of false documents the other ones admitted, they were lying also."
Once it was determined the men were illegal aliens one of the subjects told Rudisil, "You can send me back but it will be only for a visit to my family. I'll be back in two weeks."
Detectives immediately tracked down the proper authorities to deal with illegal aliens.
ICE agents came to Searcy Wednesday, interviewed the subjects and told detectives that if the subjects were not being charged with felonies there was little they could do to help, that their hands were tied.
"In our democracy we are trying to be as open as we can," Black said, explaining why an illegal alien would not be automatically deported when discovered.
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