VT corrections doesn't track ICE enforcement requests

The Vermont Department of Corrections does not have a system to track how many requests it receives from federal immigration authorities to detain undocumented immigrants past the time they would have otherwise been released, the department's public records officer said on Monday.

"We don't have a data set," David Turner, the public records officer for the Department of Corrections, said earlier this month. 

These requests have become part of an ongoing debate about sanctuary cities and the role of local law agencies in immigration enforcement.

In Vermont, law enforcement agencies faced in July a deadline to adopt the state's fair and impartial policing policy. The discretionary aspects of the state's mandatory policy deal, in part, with directing prison administrators to ignore a federal government form commonly known as a detainer request. 

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will cancel all funding for cities that enact policies of non-cooperation with federal agencies.

Figuring out the number of requests that Vermont actually receives from the federal government would require looking through every prisoner's records, Turner said. He estimated it would take about 15 minutes per file and estimated about 2,500-3,000 files needed to be searched. 

Detainer requests happen when an arrested individual's fingerprints are compared to federal immigration databases. Any "touch" between a person and federal authorities could leave records in federal databases, said Shawn Neudauer, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That means an undocumented person's fingerprints might show up if the person ever applied for a U.S. visa, or sought asylum, had been arrested or been previously deported. 

In addition, Neudauer said, some law enforcement agencies will ask people they've arrested about their citizenship. The fingerprints of all non-citizens who reside in the U.S. legally should show up in a federal database. If an individual's fingerprints don't show up, it could raise a red flag.

Under the current federal system, immigration authorities notify local law enforcement to either hold an arrested person they believe to be deportable for an extra 48 hours, or they ask local law enforcement to let federal agents know when the immigrant will be released. This allows immigration authorities to pick them up. 

Department of Corrections Deputy Commissioner Cheryl Elovirta said the department would comply with the requests.

Some Chittenden County agencies, such as the Williston police and Grand Isle County Sheriff's Office, have adopted Vermont's policy in full, including the language about ignoring detainer requests. Others, such as the South Burlington and Winooski police departments, have adopted the essential elements.

This story first appeared online on Dec. 27, 2016. Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @jess_aloe.