Jail ID program stirs fear

What kind of effect can we expect from Wake County's new program to identify and deport illegal immigrants from the local jail?

According to Sheriff Donnie Harrison, the answer is: fewer criminals. (And with every deportation, extra political points for him among the anti-immigrant crowd.)

But according to Hannah Gill, who is writing a book about immigration in nearby Alamance County, the true results are not quite so simple -- nor so rosy.

First off, she said, expect news of the crackdown to spread instantly among immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Second, expect their panic to be justified.

Gill, assistant director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC-Chapel Hill, has been gathering deportation stories since Alamance began a program similar to Wake's earlier this year.

Some of the stories sound like they're straight out of the civil rights era -- "Mississippi Burning," with an immigration twist:

The deputy who asks a worker for her "papers" while she's behind the counter at a tienda. She rightfully refuses; he waits outside until she climbs into her car, then stops her.

The man marked for deportation because his brother is a criminal and they share a last name and an apartment. Same difference, right?

The two men shot in a drive-by shooting who call the law, only to find themselves arrested and in line for deportation.

For Gill, immigration is the civil rights battlefield of our age. She acknowledges, as any thinking person would, that the current system of immigration and enforcement is deeply flawed.

But to Gill, that means that current laws are not working. She wants to see those laws fixed rather than seeing immigrants intimidated, harassed and bullied.

To her, this effort is an example of immigration enforcement being outsourced by the federal government. The problem is, this delicate function is being outsourced to a workforce inexperienced in the intricacies of immigration law.

Oh sure, the newly hired jailers will be trained under this program. But the entire sheriff's department reports to an elected official who, with every deportation, can expect to receive political attaboys from the anti-immigrant crowd.

Gill said that in Alamance County, the immigration checks and stream of deportations have destroyed the trust between law enforcement and the Latino community.

Harrison has promised that only immigrants arrested and booked into the county jail would be subject to immigration scrutiny. But, lest we forget Duke lacrosse, just because you've been arrested doesn't mean you're guilty. Either way, it's the same ticket back to Mexico or Central America.

In Alamance, Gill said, many immigrants -- legal and illegal -- are being apprehended for the offense of "Driving While Brown."

Whether all the tales are true or apocryphal is hard to tell. When there's alleged abuse of immigrants, who's going to come forward to complain?

Not people with limited English, frightened they'll be deported if they give their names.

Meantime, the pandering is easy and the political rewards are great.