US immigration agents find ways around ‘sanctuary’ policies

PHOENIX — Two years after New Mexico’s largest county barred local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration authorities, its leaders learned that the policy was being subverted from within. “Individual employees do not have the freedom to pick and choose what they want to observe.” The disclosure last month cast a spotlight on an often-overlooked way in which immigration officials around the U.S. may be getting around local “sanctuary” policies — through informal relationships with police and others willing to cooperate when they’re not supposed to. “Often people underestimate the informal relationship between ICE and local law enforcement,” said Sara Cullinane, director of the immigrant-rights organization Make the Road New Jersey. ICE said that accessing the jail database made the public safer by ensuring that criminals facing deportation weren’t released back onto the streets in the U.S. “When sanctuary-city policies inhibit ICE officers’ ability to identify and take custody of criminal aliens in a controlled environment such as local jails, ICE is forced to dedicate its limited resources to track down fugitives and dangerous criminals upon release,” said Corey Price, an official with the ICE field office in El Paso, Texas, which covers New Mexico. He said sanctuary policies are “misguided efforts” by “those who ultimately want to shield dangerous criminals from being deported.” In Chicago, police are barred from cooperating with immigration authorities in a number of ways, but ICE still had access to its gang database, advocates say.