Deportation deserved

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A major wrong

Regarding your Nov. 22 front-page article "Minor wrongs still risk deportation," I must vigorously applaud the efforts of Wake County and any other county that arrests any illegal alien for violations of the law in any category.

The fact that illegal aliens are willfully here violating U.S. immigration laws is far from being a minor offense. They need to be deported on that cause alone. We must make illegal entry into the United States a felony with criminal penalties and absolute denial of citizenship at any future time. If we fail to act, the number of illegal aliens will balloon from the tens of millions to the hundreds of millions.

John Sieminski

Deportation program is tweaked

New rules for a federal program to ferret out and deport illegal immigrants incarcerated in local jails will not mean major changes to its implementation in the Wake and Mecklenburg county jails.

Sheriffs in charge of those jails received copies last week of a new memorandum from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security outlining how the federal program known as 287(g) will be run in participating jails.

Named for a section of federal law, 287(g) allows local officers to check the immigration status of people who are arrested and booked into jail, and to begin deportation proceedings against those found to be in the country illegally.

Minor wrongs still risk deportation

The federal government said it was revamping its deportation agreements with local sheriffs to focus on ridding the country of dangerous felons. But some North Carolina sheriffs who signed the agreements have not been asked to change their practices.

Lawyers and advocates say the controversial program, which allows sheriff's departments to help identify illegal immigrants and begin deportation proceedings, is operating virtually unchanged - resulting in the deportation of people charged with offenses as minor as disorderly conduct and driving without a license.

A month after the new agreements took effect, Wake County is still putting into deportation proceedings more illegal immigrants who were arrested on misdemeanor charges than those detained in felony cases.

Sheriffs line up 3,100 to deport

More than 3,100 people from seven counties were placed in deportation proceedings this year as a result of a program that allows sheriffs to enforce federal immigration laws.

The people were flagged for deportation proceedings after being taken to jail on charges ranging from a traffic violation to murder.

"It certainly documents that there are persons illegally in this state who are committing crimes," said Eddie Caldwell, executive vice president and general counsel for the N.C. Sheriffs' Association, which has received about $1.3 million in state money in the past two years to help sheriffs combat illegal immigration.

Sheriffs help feds deport illegal aliens

Sheriff Terry Johnson's new jail has all the amenities: electronic locks, thick steel doors and a high-tech surveillance system.

Soon, he hopes, it will be full of illegal immigrants on their way to deportation.

The Alamance County Sheriff's Department, which Johnson has run since 2002, recently became one of only a dozen local law enforcement agencies nationwide to sign up for a program that allows them to enforce federal immigration laws.