Travis County Commissioners Court

February 12, 2008
Item 24

We note on our agenda that at 1:45 we will call up item number 24 and as usual this efficient court is a little bit early, but we'll call it up anyway. 24 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding request to modify county policy or practice to facilitate the bureau of immigration and customs enforcement, ice, review of legal status of certain inmates. And we also note here that the item may be taken up in executive session pursuant to 551.071 of the Texas government code. And that is the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. I did send three or four legal questions to legal, and we will get those questions answered and any others that we may think of during our discussion this afternoon. And I see representatives from the sheriff's office, so they are eager to go first apparently.

>> good afternoon.ave our sherie he comes. I thought I would have to stall for time. We're ready to go.

>> I’m sorry I missed the beginning. Are you allowing me to speak now?

>> you're right on time.

>> we're waiting for you.

>> well, first of all, I want to say thank you for this opportunity to talk about this in front of the public. We've had several meetings -- I’ve had one meeting with a group of individuals on the 24th of January at my office. And we brought in ice from san antonio to be a part of this because of some of the technical questions we couldn't answer. But we also had the greater Austin hispanic chamber of commerce. We had an aide from the Texas house of representative red di rodriguez. We had mike martinez from the city council. We had judge mckee from the municipal court. We had a lawyer named guillermo gonzalez. We had jeff peak, a criminal defense attorney, jeff ryan from popa. Marcellotfarro from lulac. We had the nicole true and several members from the Travis County sheriff's office. At that meeting I thought it would be probably about an hour meeting, but we went on for two hours explaining what we were doing. At that particular meeting, just as nicole true did last week, she came in and talked about all of these concerns that she had. And one of the things that we asked her on the 24th was to send us these names so that we can look into it. As of today nicole true and another attorney who I’ve seen in here, that paperwork has been awol so that we could find out exactly what she's talking about. Just like last week when she talked be Commissioner court meeting, she was very general and she hadn't produced any paperwork to us. And last week I also heard mr. He is par is a talk about -- esparza talk about -- I read his article in the newspaper. He talked about our relationship with ice is ludicrous. And I had an opportunity to speak with him last week on the phone due to a meeting that was going to be over at the mexican-american culture al center. And one of the things we talk about is me coming to the meeting so I could talk about what we were doing. Mr. Esparza agreed on me attending that meeting. He calls me back later on and he states that he doesn't think I should come to that meeting because it a disorganized group at the time and that he probably needed to educate those individuals. If you look in your book, you will have an e-mail that he sent to me explaining that particular is stance. He also said he was concerned because his mother-in-law was a permanent resident, that she could get arrestd for reckless driving, she would be detained, screened and probably printed. I’m here to tell you my wifeis from british honduras. She has her great aunt who lives with us, who is 88 years old. And she too is a permanent resident, and if she got stopped for reckless driving and was taken into our jail, that would happen to her too. And I asked her last night would that offend her? She said no, if testifies breaking the law that she would expect to be treated the same. So that example that mr. Esparza gave about his mother-in-law being stopped and pulled over, my wife became a citizen at the age of nine years old. If he comes to our jail, they will ask her also where was she born and she would be under the same scrutiny also. Ms. Cotera was here at the meeting. She mentioned she spoke to ladies from west Austin who were appalled at the relationship. I spoke to some men and women from west, east, north and south that are equally appalled about us even having a conversation about having a partnership with a federal organization. She spoke about a document with the major city chiefs and she stated that it was a wonderful reports and that she had really did her research. I’d like for you to turn to that document, which is under tab 1. That particular document that she did a lot of good research on, I want you to know that all of those individuals that are on the members of this committee, every one of those individuals there I have put in on some of these other tabs under 4 and probably under 6 on where every one of these individuals are doing more than we are doing as far as when it comes down to immigration. And this is a document. And she read a couple of excerpts here in this document, but one that she left out, one of the recommendations is recommendation number 9. That's on page 11. And this recommendation stated commitment of continued enforce nlt against criminal violators regardless of immigration status. It says the major city chief member agency are united in their commitment to continue arresting anyone who violates the criminal laws of their jurisdiction regardless of the immigration status of the perpetrator. Those immigrants, documented and are undocumented, who commit criminal acts will find no safe harbor or criminal sanctuary from the law within any major city, but will instead face the full force of criminal prosecution. This is a document that ms. Cotera brought to you. Also, ms. Cotera talked about -- the other thing I would like to say is the only sheriff's office that's part of this, the only slave's office that was part -- the only sheriff's office that was part of this major city chiefs was the los angeles sheriff's office. And I want you to know that the los angeles sheriff's office has individuals placed in the jail from ice and right now they have trained six custodial assistants to interview convicted inmates on immigration status. Again, this is coming from this good document that ms. Cotera brings to you. And lastly one of the thanks one of the women said is that she can't thabl the sheriff is buying into this anti-immigrant movement. She talked about racial profiling and she went on to say that a.p.d. Has worked hard to build trust in this community. And I want to say to you, Commissioners, that there's no other law enforcement agency in this state that have worked hard to build a relationship in this community. And I take offense to her even saying that we are racially profiling. This is a public safety issue. And one of the thing that really disheartened me, I’ve heard appalled, I’ve heard ludicrous, I’ve heard disheartening. I’ve heard you to know what's so ludicrous, appalling to me is that this has turned into a political issue and some of the elected officials here in Travis County are political sizing this issue and it's a public safety issue. She made a comment that she will do something, talk to people about getting me to step down. I want you to know, and I’ll tell anybody this, that I’m in this position because the people put me here. And I will not make a decision based on getting reelected. I’m here to make decisions for public safety and that is what this is about. I would like major balagia to speak to you about our poses. And one of the things ms. Truable several other attorneys and I’ve heard it several times, have mentioned that we are bringing in all of these class c's an they're staying there for extended period of times. I’m here to tell you the rest of the story.

>> thank you. I’m david balagia here and I’ll speak real briefly to the procedural aspect of what we do when we process someone. Process them into the jail. But I’d also like to take a few moments, probably intertwined with what I’m about to say to make a couple of other comments, echo what the sheriff has said. And my perspective is one of 28 years. I started my career in 1980 in the jail and I’ve remained in the jail. I’ve worked my way up through the ranks and I’ve worked in the jail. A great deal of my time in working in the jail I did work in the intake center as an officer, as a sergeant, as a lieutenant. I was a captain over intake and I was a major over intake. So I’ve been involved with that function my entire career at different points in time. Ice, formerly ins, has always been in the jail. Their agents have always accessed the jail, at fleeft the 28 years I’ve -- at least in the 28 years I’ve been employed with the sheriff's office. The thing that has -- the only thing that has changed here recently is that that agency, ice, has been given additional funds and they have additional staff. And so there is a greater presence, but if anyone tells you that this is new, it absolutely is not. These agents have been in our jail attempting to vet the people that come to jail who have committed criminal acts. You will also hear today from a number be of people that will use the word enforcement and relate to arrests. The Travis County sheriff's office does not arrest anyone for citizenship, absolutely we do not. I cannot speak for any other law enforcement agency in this county, I can only speak for tcso. We do not arrest people based on citizenship. In 2007, a little over 60,000 people were arrested in Travis County. All of those people came to the central booking facility for a criminal charge, a criminal offense that was a local state charge. None of them were brought to us for the fact that they were here illegally. What we do and what we have done for years and years and years is to ask each person arrested to identify themselves. Now, this is based on a couple of mandates. One is the Texas commission on jail standards. The jail standards requires that we identify every single person that comes into our custody. It's for intake and it's for release, as silly as that sounds. You have to make sure you're releasing the same person that you processed in if it is in fact their time to leave. So you have the duty to identify them. The vienna convention on counselor notification also requires that we identify a person and their country of birth, so that is a question that we ask of all persons arrested and brought into custody. And it is a self-report part of our process. We do not verify or dispute what we are told, so if someone comes into our custody, we merely ask them the country of their birth. Under the federal law, under the act, we are required then to make a mandatory notification depending on where a person was born, if in fact they were born in one of those mandatory countries. If they were born in a country other than the mandatory country, then we ask them if they want their consul lat notified, and they can refuse. They can say no or they can say yes. And so we follow their instructions. So those are the reasons why we identified people. Our computer system is set up in such a manner that whatever the person reports to us, we enter into the computer. So if it's a country other than the united states, once we enter that code and it's not just the united states, that automatically pop laits a report that is on a 24-hour -- is maintained on a 24-hour basis. At the end of that 24 hours, that report automatically goes to the local office of ice. Those are people that are reported to us that they were born in a country other than the united states. Ice then takes that report that they receive seven days a week for persons that have been arrested and reported a birth place other than the united states for the last 24 hours, and they do with it what they will. Now, I suspect they come in and talk to every single one of those persons, but if you want to know that specifically, you need to ask though agents. I’ve never asked them how they do their job or how they perform their duties, but the information is given to them and they take that then and do whatever they will with it. Do we allow them to come in the jail? Absolutely. As I said earlier, we've allowed those agents to come into our facility for the last 28 years, or at least the 28 years I’ve been here. So yes, we've allowed them into the facility. Always have. From the work that they do, the research, the questioning or however they arrive at their conclusion, yes, they place detainers on persons that are in custody. Those detainers allow us to maintain custody of the person for 48 hours after any local charge has been disposed of. And when I say disposed of, if someone came into jail and were charged with a criminal offense, but also had a detainer on them and they received bond on their criminal offense, we absolutely would accept the bond, release the local charge and then notify ice that their 48 hours has started and they need to take custody. And they'll take custody within 48 hours.

>> do we have statistics on the number of individuals who would have bonded out except for their ice detainer.

>> I believe it's impossible to deduce because I have no idea why a judge would or would not approve a bond, whether it's pr or surety or whatever. The only thing I could tell you is that if a bond is presented to the sheriff, statutorily we'll take the bond.

>> so they would be magistrated quickly enough that you would know that they were eligible for bond at the same time or before an ice detainer was requested. Am I correct about that or not?

>> everyone is magistrated. You asked me how many did not get out on bond. They all are eligible. They're all eligible, every single one of them are eligible to be released on bond for their criminal charge. Every single one of them. The only persons that come into custody that are not eligible to be bonded out are people that come in on what's referred to as an atrp, application to revoke probation, out of federal court, which normally the district judges do not set bond on those. Once the person comes into cuss tow and after the fact, I’ve seen a lot of times where they will set bond. But that warrant holds no bond amount. So those people aren't able to bond themselves out. And persons that come to jail on a parole hold, a parole violation, a blue warrant, those have no bond. And no judge is authorized to set bonds on those. Absent those two charges off the top of my head.

>> how many of eligible for a pr bond?

>> a recommendation is made to the judge. That's how I’ll answer the question. I wouldn't know whether they're eligible and I don't know whether anybody in the sheriff's office would know, nor do I believe it is our business. That's a matter for the court. I know that the judges rely hechly on the recommendations from pretrial services, but that's probably a discussion you should have with those two offices.

>> so how long has the 48-hour immigration hold been in place.

>> as long as I can remember it's always been 48 hours.

>> that's a federal requirement?

>> yes.

>> on local corrections facilities?

>> yes, sir.

>> so anyway, I think I was about through. So ice gets the report and as I said, they have always had access to the jail, and they interview people that are there on a local criminal charge, and they either do or they don't place the detainer. I can't prove whether that does or does not occur. I would guess, I would suspect that that happens quite frequently with those arrested on class c misdemeanor. I believe persons have testified before you that there's a number of people coming to jail on class c offenses only, and that's who is having the detainers placed on them and thus they're staying in custody. Our data does not indicate that. We are not seeing a lot of people in jail with class c offenses only with detainer. And tanya will speak to it maybe.

>> [ laughter ] tanya can sphoa the -- tanya cak to the statistical report, but before she does that real quick, -- I’m sorry, go ahead.

>> let me get to the bottom line here. Recently I guess you negotiated with ice for two major changes, if looks like. One of them was for ice to have an office or office space, whereas previously they did not. Is that true?

>> yeah. Yeah, it is.

>> and before, how would they conduct the interviews before?

>> they would ask our officers to move over or they would find an open space so that they could conduct their interview.

>> a lot of the interviews are done on people that are already in housing. They're not at the central booking facility. They're in the Travis County jail or at del valle. And they go to the housing units and interview them, the people.

>> but they utilize the same facilities that, say, defense attorneys or bail bonds men use to interview people?

>> they could. They could also utilize the same spaces that a.p.d. Investigators, detectives --. A lot of times they don't -- I’m talking about detectives and ice agents and all these people. They would rather go back to the housing unit and talk to them as opposed to waiting in advicetation for them to be brought up. But they have in the past. And in fact, the court entered into agreement back in 99 or some year. You weren't here, Commissioner.

>> I was, but not in this capacity.

>> I meant you weren't sitting there in '99. I’m glad you were here. I’m sorry you weren't sitting there. But no offense now, I think I just put my foot in my mouth. No offense to the person who was sitting there in 1999. I didn't mean it that way. But we entered into an agreement that said that basically what we do anyway, even though the court saw it, agreed to it, gave ice access -- I know we want to get to the statistic because they are so very important. I have to make this editorial comment. I have to. Sheriff hamilton is the sixth sheriff and the last sheriff that I will work for. I can say with all confidence that he has done in his very short tenure 10 fold what all the other sheriffs have done in this community in reaching out to them and partnering with them. And it is extremely, extremely disappointing to me as someone who has spent his entire career as a public servant, to see this happening to this very, very goodman. And this excellent sheriff. Now, think back to the sheriffs that we've had, those other five sheriffs that I’m talking about, they were good sheriffs. They were real good sheriffs. This man does not deserve to be talked to the way he has been. We are not enforcing immigration law. That's not what we're doing. We're not going out and arresting people. Would there be a liability associated with that? I think there would. What we are doing in the jail is the same thing we've done for the last 28 years. We are cooperating with a federal law enforcement agency. We are fulfilling our oath and helping them fulfill theirs.

>> okay. So as to del valle, it's the same as --

>> [ applause ] -- same as in previous years. But in central booking is where the office is.

>> that's correct. And there's pictures in the back of your bind thear show open seating, and otherwise the inmates would just sit there.

>> under what tab?

>> the very back.

>> I think it's at the very end, judge.

>> okay.

>> the first picture is open seating. We have a district supervision intake center. The inmates wait lit lit rally for their -- literally for their turn to be fingerprinted, to ask questions torks get their phone calls torks see the nurse, to see the judge. They're just in open seating. The second picture you see, I believe, is an area where a different -- a variety of different interviews can occur. Our staff can use it, pretrial staff uses that. And if not ice wants to use that space. The third picture is the front door of that little office that you're referring to judge that we would give them. I didn't measure it, but for all the years I’ve been here and we've been building, it's probably 120 square feet, regular office space.

>> they have started using that office?

>> they have not.

>> none of the things that you need to understand, at this particular meeting that we had originally with those people that I told you that was at the meeting, they don't plan on being in that office for another at least eight months -- six to eight months. I can tell you that we have questioned other sheriff's departments around the country. Major balagia is part of the major sheriff's conference group, large jail network, and he has sent out an e-mail and ice has been in -- ice has been in el paso sheriff's department two years ago. They started this process and being in there 24/7. As of today, two years later, they're still not there. That is a goal that they're hoping to accomplish. And I’m sure that it probably would be longer than eight months before these individuals are able to be here 24/7 because they have to train the individuals to be immigration officers.

>> okay. So the arrangement that the statesman reported was arrived at when? A month ago?

>> in December, major long --

>> ?

>> in December.

>> prior to December, how long would ice would be in our facilities?

>> I have no idea. They have 24-hour access to our facilities just like defense attorneys. They can come at any time.

>> does anybody know?

>> major darren long, I’m the new jail administrator over at the Travis County jails. When that list goes out that major balagia refers to, they would go down their list, go through their processes and then they would come in and do interviews. That could be Monday through Friday or they've even come in on Saturdays and Sundays to do their interview and make the determination whether they're going to lift that detainer or start the deportation.

>> are they there now more than they were over a month ago?

>> yes, judge.

>> more of them.

>> one of the things that they said that the appropriation has increased and they started showing a higher number of individuals I believe back in June.

>> after the first meeting, judge, they notified us that they've got additional personnel. They were going to start out at del valle in conducting interviews on people maybe they have missed during the initial process and eventually they would like to come into central booking and have more of a presence there.

>> I only have two more questions and I’ll be done. So do we know how many immigration holds we have had during the last 30 days compared to 31-plus?

>> we have those numbers. That's part of the numbers she's going to give you.

>> good afternoon, judge, Commissioners. Tanya mullins, research and planning with the sheriff's department. Behind tab nine in your books, you'll see a page that looks something like this without the chicken scratch.

>> okay.

>> it would be -- they would complain about not getting the chicken scratch?

>> I would be more than happy to let you have mine. I can go through this line by line if you would like. To answer your question, the first sheet that you see is all of the inmates booked into the Travis County jail. In the yellow column it's 12-1 through 12-31. And therefore --

>> can I ask you, can you give a few numbers? Because the people sitting in the seats here do not have that information. So they can kind of get an idea of what it is that you have given us.

>> sure. Absolutely. The data that we're talking about here, we're comparing two groups essentially of bookings. We're looking at bookings from the entire month of December 2007 and we're looking at the bookings that have occurred 2-1 through 2-11. What I’ve done is provided the percentages here of some of these, so I’ll start with the total number of bookings during the month of December. It was 4,298. 2-1 through 2-11 there have been 1761. The number of inmates who self-reported citizenship other than the u.s. During the month of December, 565, or 13% of the total number of bookings. 2-1 through 2-11 that number is 227 or 13% of the total bookings that have occurred to date. Of the total number of inmates, those who have an ins detainer during the month of December, 117 or three percent of the total bookings. 2-1 through 2-11 that number is 237 or six percent of the total bookings. One of the things I’d like to point out from the data also is of the total number of bookings, the number of inmates whose highest charge was a class c misdemeanor, during the entire month of December, 958 inmates were booked into the Travis County jail whose highest charge was a class c misdemeanor. That's 20% of the entire bookings. The group that self-reports citizenship other than u.s., there was -- that number again was 565 who self-reported citizenship other than u.s. 121 of those people in that category had a class c only, or 21%. Of the number of inmates with an ins detainer, there were 10 of that 117 whose highest charge was a class c misdemeanor or nine percent of that group. Are there any questions on this sheet regarding bookings?

>> I guess what conclusion should we reach based on these numbers?

>> let's go to the next page, judge.

>> I’ll withhold my question.

>> I have to -- I’m so sorry. I have to go to a doctor's appointment because my foot is throbbing so hard it's about to fly off my leg, but may I ask a couple of questions before I go? Actually, I won't. I’ll let it keep going. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

>> the second sheet that you see snapshots of in-custody population and we often look at the population for respect of what drives our average daily jail population. We ask that we look at our in-custody population a lot. And most of the reports that you see relevant to our population are snapshots of the in-custody population. So what we've done here is we have two snapshots for you. One is snapshotting the in-custody population on January 31st, and then the second column with the gray column header, it's snapshotting the in-custody population on February 11th. The first table ranks inmates by their highest charge. This is inmates in custody with an ins detainer. In January there were 279 inmates in our custody with an ins detainer on January 31st, this snapshot. February 11th, 362. There was an increase between those two snapshot dates of 83. The felony categories increased 57%. Class a and b misdemeanors and misdemeanor undetermined increased 40.48%. Class c misdemeanors only increased two percent.

>> are we saying that these increases are because of increased ice presence in February? I’m just not sure what these two data points are showing us the December versus -- the January versus February?

>> I think it does show a few things. The first is yes, there's more agents looking and talking to people. So yes, I think you're going to see an increase in the number of detainers placed because of the great presence in the jail. So yes, the second thing I think this comparison shows you is look at the charges. Look at the criminal charges. These are people that otherwise would be in our custody. Even if most of these people, not all of them, but if most of these people did not have the ins detainer, they would still be in our custody. They're first degree, second degree, third degree felons. They would still be in our custody.

>> but one could argue the other side of that. If they're still in our custody, what is the necessity for ice to have office space so they could -- this goes to the unfunded federal mandate question. If they're going to still be in our custody, why shouldn't ice simply make regular visits as they always have, or at least the 28 years we've been seeing them?

>> because they believe they can do a better job if they're in the central booking facility. They believe they're doing a good job, but they believe they can do a better job and we don't disagree with them.

>> and that is their job.

>> that is their job.

>> but it is their job.

>> yes. It is their job.

>> and not ours.

>> we're assisting them in doing their job is how I look at it.

>> and going back to item number 9 in the binder regarding the recommendations, irrespective of someone's immigration status, if they're a danger to society it is our job to keep them away from society through the bonding process, setting a high bond or in very rare cases denying bond. So I am simply struggling with the idea that immigration as a policy is a purely federal mandate for which we have no parallel mandate in Texas criminal law. So my hope is that we could find a way to make that clear distinction between what is the federal obligation and what is ours. If it were the dna for instance, that would be different because we do have a twin mandate, but with immigration we do not. I’m concerned about the slippery slope, office space, telephone, computer hookup. Then eventually additional aid from our law enforcement's resources. I’m concerned about that.

>> I’d like to make a comment on that, Commissioner. Just like we have arrest warrants that go throughout the state and even throughout the nation and someone honors them to arrest and detain persons we're looking for, okay, some people are asking the sheriff to ignore a federal detainer on people that they are looking for.

>> that's not what I’m asking. What I’m asking is the appropriateness of us providing local law enforcement resources for a purely federal mandate.

>> I don't believe we're giving local law enforcement resources. We are providing a counter space for them to do their paish work. We're not investing anybody from -- I’ve worked 21 years in this department. And law enforcement and corrections. We have not invested any of our officer time into profiling or arresting or detaining or anything else. We mainly go by a sheet that we ask a number of questions. Those questions populate different fields and they get sent off to someone. They come in and do the interviews. We don't waste any of our resources on that.

>> and I agree. We've always been very, very clear in the policies, and I thank sheriff hamilton and prior sheriffs for having a very clear line in that regard.

>> and they reimburse us -- when we notify them of the 48 hours, we invoice them. They pay us $48 each day that we are holding them after our local charges have been filed.

>> they pay us more than a million dollars --

>> we received $1.2 million.

>> that pays for a lot of our equipment, that pays for a lot of things that we do. Our technology. Cameras in cars. Those jag grants. It pays for intermediate weapons for our officers for public safety.

>> but again all I’m asking for us is for us to continue that clear separation and I’m concerned that office space begins a fuzzy line. That I have also seen developed in other jurisdictions.

>> Commissioner, I can appreciate your position. I happen to disagree with it. We cooperate with every single entity that comes knocking on our door regardless of who they are. The irs asked us to give them information on detained persons, so they can look at benefits. We cooperate with them. We've always cooperated with ice. If I went back to craig, who is in charge of the office here, and said we've reconsidered. We're not going to give you the office space, he's going to say that's fine. I’ll stand there in that square and -- he'll do his business and we'll allow it because we have always cooperated with every agency whether they're federal, state, local. It just doesn't matter.

>> when we talk about giving up space. Bun of the things I want you to know is that Travis County sheriff's office does not have a range. We've been working with fci, a federal organization, who has allowed us to use the raing at a cost of $2,000 a month. They're not costing us. And our officers have to be qualified. It's my understanding that we've been working with the family violence unit for 10 years, and we get space over there and we have not been charged.

>> and again, the distinction I’m drawing is the twin mandates in law enforcement. We have twin mandates at the federal and state level, but immigration is not one of those.

>> did we did give you a chance to finish the numbers?

>> did y'all have any questions concerning the numbers?

>> she's going to give some numbers here.

>> I’m giving her a chance to finish. We'll have two or three questions, I know.

>> absolutely. What I’d like to do is run down the number of people in each of these charge categories. And rather than go through both snapshot dates, I’ll just give you the most recent, being 2-11. If you have any specific questions, you can certainly ask. Of the inmates in custody with an ins detainer as of February 11th there was one individual with a capital felony. 50 individuals with a first degree felony as their highest charge. 61 individual with a second degree felony as their highest charge. 61 individuals with a third degree felony as their highest charge. 53 individuals with a class a misdemeanor as their highest charge. 51 individuals with a class b misdemeanor as their highest charge. Three individuals with a class c misdemeanor as their highest charge. Four individuals with a misdemeanor undetermined. 35 individuals with a felony undetermined. 43 individuals with a state jail felony undetermined. And this again comprises the 362 individuals in custody as of 2-11 with an ins detainer.

>> that's for 11 days, 362, whereas all of January it was 279.

>> this is a snapshot --

>> these are one day looks. These are just looking at that one day.

>> this is January 31st only and only 211.

>> yes, ma'am. And it's looking at the makeup of that population at that time.

>> but still the number is obviously comparing the two days. It's still more than 362.

>> 83 people more.

>> it kind of looks like it's because ice has become more efficient since they're more stationary. And I do have an issue with that. I think -- I don't have any problem with them doing it on the counter space, but I think that getting into a permanent office space is much too permanent. And the federal immigration is not a local issue. It's not a local responsibility. It is a federal responsibility. And because the federal folks have not taken care of their duties of coming up with an acceptable immigration policy, it's all trickling down to the local areas an we're having to -- local taxpayers are going to have to think about making the funds available for that duty. And this has come up before with the conference of urban counties where county officials wanted to train people in order to keep up with the so-called illegals. And I don't happen to think that any human being from earth is illegal. And you say illegal --

>> [ applause ] you say illegal to me and it's et, okay? And I don't think that this is any -- this is not about et. But I do think that, as I said, other county officials have tried to address the needs of trying to identify immigrants. That's not our job. My job as a local official is to make sure that I make sure that people here in this community, their security is taken care of. And there's no doubt that someone with a felony, a capital murder charge, no matter what their status and no matter if they're just passing through and they commit something like this in any county, that they're going to be stopped. They're not going to be let out on a bond. The judge is not going to do that. Simply because it's the security of a community. But I think that we are kind of taken over, trying to take over the duties of the federal -- of a federal policy. And that's not what we're about. I realize, sheriff that, we both take oaths, and security is the number one issue. Whether I ran for constable or whether I ran for Commissioner, that is the number one issue. And I think I’ve always -- I’ve always listened very carefully to your budget and I’ve always voted for you, whether it was sheriff hamilton or whether it was sheriff bailey or whether it was sheriff frazier. That had you all of the resources that you needed to not only keep the community safe, but to keep yourselves safe as well so that thrrn enough officers out there patrolling, that had you all of the tools that you needed to make sure that you were safe as you kept this community safe. And I don't think that we have any disagreement on that point. But I do think that I take an oath as well to do everything that I can to keep this community safe, but I have no intention of taking over a federal mandate, and I have no intention of doing their job for them. It's their job to do their job. And if they're not doing it, then I think we need to take some action. Let's get some people who will really do their job. But this is not -- and also, this is not -- yeah, it's a political issue, but you know, that's why we run for office. There are going to be some political issues that are just a little tough, but I don't think that I need to be defensive about the community calling me down on something that I’ve done. That's not the proper way to carry out democracy. And elected office means we are responding to people, whether it's a popular issue or not. It's necessary in a democracy that we have a conversation with people, even if they don't agree with us. And to get defensive is not going to bring us closer to finding a good solution to this issue. Yes, sir, it is emotional and it is political, but it would probably help for us to have a conversation. Elected officials have a conversation with Commissioners court about some of these issues because they are -- they're political. They're tough. And I don't blame you. I think you ought to coordinate, communicate with other law enforcement agencies, but we should also communicate, collaborate and coordinate among all of the elected officials here in Travis County so that we'll be on the same page about some of these issues. But thanks for the information.

>> I don't think what part of this conversation that you didn't hear. One of the things that we said was that we were in here -- these individuals are coming to us. Ice is putting the detainer on these individuals. Our job is to maintain the safety and security of that jail. As far as us, and I’ve heard it several times. As far as Travis County sheriff's office out there doing federal enforcement, I don't know how we can get it across that we're not. And you've just said that that's what we were trying to do, and we're not.

>> but I think by giving them --

>> [ applause ]

>> but by giving permanent space to carry out a federal mandate in my opinion is taking steps to do a federal job to help them do the job. I think they need to figure out how to do this on the federal level, and then I think that space, counter space is fine. But there's a little fine line here that we need to come to an agreement about if we could if at all possible. But it's not possible if we're going to be defensive about each other, about each other's position.

>> Commissioner, we do agree with your statement that I believe you said that the federal officials need to do their job better, and so we're helping them do that. We are cooperating with them to allow them to do their job better. They've always been in the jail, as I said earlier, and in defense of the sheriff, he was not at the meeting when the ice officials met with us. They simply asked the question, we're in the jail all the time, can we have a place to sit down? I was the one that said yes. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I needed approval from this court to allow space that goes unused over 50% of the day anyway, to allow them to use the space.

>> but if there's a question, let's communicate about it. Let's talk about it and see what we can work out. If there's a question about legality -- we always have the county attorney's office and they can give us advice.

>> but I don't believe it is a legal question. The sheriff operates the jail and we'll give space where we can and when we can.

>> I guess we'll have to settle those issues --

>> the only difference is that it's an old used desk in a closet about the size of an eight by 10 room that our fto's were using to fill out paperwork. Now we're make ing it available for the ice agents to sit down and fill out a piece of paper and that's it. That's the only thing different besides doing it on a counter space and doing it in a room with a chair where they can sit down and have a conversation with somebody. That is the only difference.

>> let me ask a question. So what happens after the 48 hour hold?

>> I haven't come across anybody that's been past the 48 hours. Now, that includes federal holidays and weekends. So say if someone got their charge disposed of as of, say, on a Friday, we notify ice. We've got 48 hours to come pick it up. Their 48 hours actually starts on -- they've got Monday and Tuesday to come get them. And I’ve been here 21 years. I don't know of anybody that's gone over that. You've heard some people make comments that people are in our jails for two and three months on only a detainer. I would like for someone to present that information to me because I haven't seen it.

>> well, I can tell you judge, I’ve been called at night and said, his 48 hours are up. What do you do? And I instruct them to release them. Contact ice and let them know that we released them. They can look for them again or do whatever they do. We have released people that were past the 48 hours. In almost every case they meet their mandate and stlb within 48 hours.

>> let's say that the local charges, criminal charges are disposed of.

>> and so do we -- if there's an immigration hold, do we notify ice and the 48 hour period starts running then?

>> correct.

>> now, when they reimburse us disrks it go back to the time that the local hold was released or after the 48s?

>> the day that the local charge is disposed of is our day. The very next day we get to charge for. So, an example, they dispose of the charges on Wednesday, they pick them up on Thursday, we charge them for Thursday. If they happen to pick them up on Wednesday when we notify them, we don't charge them at all. If it's the next day, we charge for the day.

>> so the arrangement that we have reached, that's an informal arrangement basically? It documented by written agreement or what?

>> informal. Uferltd I’m the chief deputy for Travis County. I want to address the issues about charging any fellow agency for office space. If we were to go down that slippery slope as a term that members of the court have used, the criminal justice system from a law enforcement perspective would be in absolute gridlock. We have interlocal agreements all across the state of Texas with dea, f.b.i., the family violence protection team, children's advocacy center. We've got victim services relationships. We've got the combined auto taskforce. There's all this stuff. If we had to go out and ask every single time to go through the county attorney's office and the Commissioners court office to get approval, we wouldn't have a jail overcrowding problem because there would be nobody in it. We would not be able to work together cooperatively and collaboratively with law enforcement agencies? Central Texas because we would be sitting around waiting for the documents to be approved instead of keeping the citizens of central Texas safe because of bureaucratic red tape. I am still a firm nler that the jail belongs to the sheriff and that if he wants to give up office space to work cooperatively to keep criminals off the streets so they don't go back and slip through the cracks of the criminal justice system and happen to get out out on a bond that what happened with the boy that was kidnapped the other day, that individual there's a good indication that he's here illegally. He's been arrested four or five times. No one from ice was there to catch it. He slipped through and flook look what happened. He's involved in a kidnapping, extortion and ransom. I think if we would have been more cooperative, that little boy wouldn't have gone thraw kidnapping. This is one example. There are hundreds more through that like there throughout the country.

>> [ applause ]

>> I’d like to make a follow-up comment. I mean, you're asking a local sheriff to not honor and not cooperate. And it's our duty to cooperate with other law enforcement agencies. Especially with a sheriff like this who has done more in the minority communities especially than any sheriff I’ve ever known. So I think that people that are compassionate about this immigration issue, I think it's misdirected at the sheriff that their fight is at capitol hill for immigration reform, not at a local sheriff's office when we're trying to work collaboratively with other law enforcement agencies and we're not enforcing their laws. We're assisting them. That's all that we're doing. We let them use an old desk and if you just saw it. It's an old beat up desk and a plastic chair. It's not like we're buying them all this new stuff. We've entered a lease agreement with them or anything like that. It was just another -- I don't see any difference. Commissioner Gomez, you said I have no problem with them working on a counter space. I see that as no different than a desk in a little room that's only been used part of the time. I see no difference in that. I think that's semantics there.

>> [ applause ]

>> any other questions before the sheriff leaves?

>> is the sheriff going to leave? I just want you to know, I’m amazed also that we're having to deal with this. The only subject more controversial in the united states of america today than I am graition and illegal immigration is the iraq war. I mean, people are dying, their crying out from both parties. I mean, we have the opportunity to insinuate, sheriff, that you would do nothing more than to cooperate with the federal authorities. We've got people before us, that maybe haven't been tried and found guilty, but we have an opportunity here to do something that makes -- I mean, the most common sense thing to me that I’ve ever heard of in my life. I mean, and I think -- and I support you 100% in what you're doing. In fact, I’d be more upset if you weren't doing the right thing in this situation, so I don't want you to leave this room thinking --

>> [ applause ] I can't leave because then we couldn't do court, but --

>> others have come to give testimony on this item. Please come forth. Yes, sir. We have room for six. Seats for six. And as one finishes, if you would leave the table and another westbound will be invited to come -- and another will be invited to come forward. Yes, sir?

>> good afternoon. My name is jeff peab, I’m a local immigration attorney as well as criminal attorney, I’ve been practicing for the last eight years. I’ve lived in Austin my whole life. I want to make sure before everybody gets to speak is that they don't get too loss on a couple of issues that are important to me as an attorney. One thing you really need to focus on is the fact that there are people who are here legally, whether they be on a tourist visa, permanent residents, work visa. And they have been detained. I know they want to know the names. The law -- the burden of proof is not on the citizen to prooive he's a citizen so he can get out of jail. The sheriff apologized that time because he said it was a mistake. The sheriff didn't put the hold on ice did. But I can't tell you a more offensive thing to me as a protector of the constitution of somebody being detained because they thought he was an undocumented immigrant. Is an undocumented immigrant a canadian, european, is it somebody from asia. We're talking about hispanic here with last names and with accents. And you can be a citizen and be born outside of this country. You can be born and go through the naturalization process. There are people with papers that have done things the right way who should not be punished who are getting detainers put on them. Again, that's not the sheriff's fault, but you understand what a detainer is. It's just a request saying immigration says we'd like to look into this person. It's just ice saying we have a feeling about this person. What goes into that thought process of profiling of who they've got a feeling about? The sheriff would say it's anybody who answers the question were you born in the united states, yes or no. If they answer no, that's not the end of the conversation. It's okay, you're born outside the united states. Are you here on a work visa? I’m sure the sheriff doesn't want to get into do you have a derivative citizenship claim? Do you have nairpz process? Are you going to be able to adjust legally. That's one issue I want you guys to address. The second is the fact that if they go forward and have 24 hour enforcement seven days a week, like ice hoans they will, maybe eight months, who knows. Sometime in 2008. Using 2005 numbers on the study y'all did back in 2006, there was almost 11,000 undocumented immigrants detained throughout the entire 2005. So we'll be housing 11,000 inmates that were not previously being housed because a little over 8,000 of these people were just misdemeanors, and most of those people will get out on personal bonds depending on the circumstances. So you will have to build quite a few new facilities to house 11,000 people. The other issue that I think the defense bar would have is what kind of treatment in the justice system are they going to get? Anybody from the county attorney's office can tell you on jail call if somebody is going throb with a lesser offense, they're probably going to get a smaller recommendation for jail time. If I’m innocent, let's say I’m charged with assault and family violence, I was just protecting myself and I get put in jail and the county attorney's office offers me 20 days because they see I have an ice hold. They say you can take the deal and I’m like I didn't do it. They set it up for jury trial, you're sitting there for months waiting for jury trial. You will have people signing paperwork just to get out of the system, to get out of jail. I don't know anybody in this room who would rather stay three months in jail rather than prove their innocence just by signing a piece of paper? And the substitute -- the subsequent problem that person will have -- let's say that person did have an immigration petition pending. They just pled to an offense. Now a little deportable. So he'll go to immigration court and they'll say I see here you have your residency application pending. We should be able to let you go. Wait, but you just pled guilty to family domestic violence. See you later. But I didn't do it. Sorry, you shouldn't have pled guilty. We'll see you. These issues are so complicated. You're taking on a lot, just understand that, by starting to detain every person.

>> I think that was my point. I don't want it to get lost. That was my point that we're not trained to do immigration. And I think that because of the complication and all of these things, then we're talking about maybe training people to do immigration? No, no. That's even biting off more. They need to get busy getting something done on immigration and it's not our job to do it.

>> I’ll end with this. We are accumulating the names. The defense bar of attorneys who represent spanish speaking immigrants -- not just immigrants, but spanish speaking clients, they could be citizens, is over 50 people. So we're coordinating, getting lists together. I can tell you that there are quite a few organizations who help the legal interests of not just citizens, but permanent residents and immigrants in this country. And if there are a suspicious number being detained, you will eventually have a lawsuit. Ice will tell you the same thing. They say we correct those mistake. I have a client who was detained, a permanent resident, had detention went on by ice. The family went down to the ice office, took the permanent resident card, they said we'll deal with that after he's let out on bond. Problem. Who is going to let him out on bond when he's in on detainer. That guy ended up pleading so he could get out of jail quickly. And of course then ice then released their detainer.

>> good afternoon. I’ve been invited to help in the testimony of this person. I’m an immigrant worker. And I’m also a community organizer with the organization called --

>> judge? One momento. We need to be respectful, please.

>> I’m sorry, ma'am. But there's a matter out here, someone made a comment saying -- moim moim.

>> [inaudible - no mic].

>> I’m a community organizer with the community organization, the labor defense project. Frand the eighth to the 11sth of January we had a regional training program for other organization here in Austin. And on the 10th of January when I was with people that were here from seattle, washington and california... I was detained by a police officer from the city of Austin. And that was the reason that -- for which I was detained is that according to that person, when I made a right turn I went beyond a certain right line. And when I went ahead and showed him my identification and explained what my immigration status was here, at that point when I explained the work that I was doing here in Austin, at that point he said oh, you're very nice. At that point, however, he directed himself to one of the passengers that was in my vehicle. And asked that person for his identification. That person then showed him his residency card. And after the officer checked it, saw it, he asked where did you get this one, at the flea market? So at that point that person who was someone who was here from california was offended by the comment and he went on to explain to him, no, I got this from the immigration authority's office in california. So then he reviewed the document again and at that point he finally returned our identifications to all of us and allowed us to go on our way. I bring this to light because I was of the understanding that a police officer had no right to request an identification of immigration cat stat tus of an individual. So those people that were here from outside of -- from other places, including there were some attorneys amongst them, they left Austin with an ugly taste in their mouth. What is happening now with the immigration penal being inside the jail concerns us a lot. Because it allows, it opens the door for racist at studies to come to light. Racist add tiewds to come to light.

>> and we are concerned about the attitude that there may be both from officers of the Austin police department as well as from officers of the Travis County sheriff's department. We acknowledge that the city of Austin has proclaimed itself to be a security zone, a safety zone for immigrant -- migrant workers.

>> and we're very proud to be able to contribute to the economic development of this city. We're workers. We're members of a family. We're fathers. We're brothers. We're children of our parents. We are participants in this community. And we are members of this community and we participate in it as we are taxpayers. Our fear is that violence might increase and that because of that fear, this violence, violence committed upon us, will not get adequately reported to the authorities, to the sheriffs and police. This opens the doors for people who are racist to actually attack anybody who does not look like he is white or anybody who looks like an immigrant. We fear that this could also lead to an increase in family violence. And we are concerned. We worry about being able to keep our families together. We have brothers, we have children that have been born in this country. And thus they are citizens. We want to ask for your intervention, Commissioners. On that it's possible for you to take action in this matter. And be assured that vul the backing and -- that you will have the backing and the support of the latino community. I want to take advantage of the microphone, of the opportunity available to me to call upon sheriff hamilton, to invite him to open dialogue, to talk with the community, with all of the communities that are part of Austin. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> [ applause ] I was here a couple of weeks ago so I’m not g repeat everything I said, but I would like to respond to some of the things that sheriff hamilton stated here today. First of all, it is true that we had a meeting a couple of weeks ago. It was an organizational meeting of the people that were concerned about this issue. We wanted to talk among ourselves and we did invite him and he did accept to be tonight at a meeting at connally guerrero senior citizens center on miles road, pleasant valley and miles. So my knowledge we have always treated the sheriff with respect that he merits, and while we may disagree on this issue, I myself and everybody that I know have always been courteous, polite with him, but also disagree with him. I would also point out for the record that the people who have been fervently applauding the comments of the sheriff and his associates here today, a lot of them are members of the minute men who are behind me. So that should say a lot about where we're at on this issue, especially you, my Commissioner Daugherty, I’m very disappointed that your views align with people like those.

>> are you calling me a minute men?

>> no, sir.

>> I just wanted to make sure that you weren't.

>> alberto garcia. Former law class pate of mine. Classmate of mine.

>> and when the sheriff says that there are no class c's being placed in jail, I believe we provided mistruth and a lot of the other members of the coalition have provided to you a package. In the back are three just random people that were selected in the last couple of days. That show that there are immigration holds on some traffic tickets and public intoxication. A lot of us have made mistakes. I don't think that any of us quarrel with the serious offenses,. Urday,t want you want to do that her son, 20, 21-year-old, a.c.c. Student who has been in Austin since he was in elementary school, got arrestd for a routine d.w.i. Like so many others in his community. It did not matter what offense it was. He was not going to get out because he was placed on an immigration hold. And that means that this young man, who could have maybe had a future community, will now be deported to mexico where he has no family. And he can barely speak spanish for that matter he's been here so many years. The policies that we are enforcing are federal policies that I think all of us in this room -- even though I disagree with -- understand are broken. They are policies that don't work, they have never worked. There are in this community hundreds and now thousands of people that build your homes. The actions of the sheriff, I don't know what actions he's talking about building relationship with the minority community, but this action has had the effect of destroying any relationship, positive r can consist with you counov and latino an tl carry onhis community. Because individuals will see a difference between the sheriff and a.p.d. Or manor police or utpd or any other law enforcement official.

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners] yes, maybe, maybe. But that is not -- I mean the issue here is I think what all of this country is looking for is how do we get our arms around illegal immigrants. Are there jobs being done, right, are there yards being mowed, you are right, is concrete being laid, are dishes being washed by a lot of folks of hispanic dissent? Absolutely. But if you have done all the things you need to do and there are a lot of people here that are natural citizens and they don't speak the english language that well, but they are here legally. I don't want anybody to think I am out here trying to find somebody just because they have a spanish accent or I mean a jamaican accent, I mean what we're really -- and I think this country is looking for is how do you deal with people that are here illegally. And if jeff is still here, maybe he is, the problem we have today is a lot of things have changed in this country in the last 7 to 10 years. And what we're looking for is just a way that all of us that are here legally, and quite frankly, there are a lot of us here legally that are more than willing to have you come to this country and to go through the process and become a citizen. I don't know of anyone that's not interested in that.

>> [applause] I don't want you to couch me as someone that I just want to go out because somebody -- the gentleman that just spoke, it is not offensive to me he is not able to address us in english. But, you know, people want to say or want to infer that that's what you are trying to be, Commissioner Daugherty, that is the farthest thing from the rut. I want you to have every opportunity to come to this country and go through this system we have in place in order to become a citizen like so many people have done in this country, and I will open-arm support that. But I am not going to turn my back on something that I know that is going on, and for people to promote the fact that you can come here and not care whether you are legal or not is offensive to me. And I think it's offensive to an awful lot -- an awful lot of people. I think it's really offensive to people that are here legally.

>> [applause] I don't want you, mr. Garcia, to think you and I may not be far apart on many of the things, we're probably way far apart if what you are supportive of is yes, you can come here illegally and you can stay illegally and that's okay with me because that's not okay with me.

>> let me tell you this, Commissioner --

>> [applause] I have several uncles when I was growing up came to this country illegally to do the hard work that probably no one else would do and they did it because their families were hungry. And when people had to take care of their families, when they have to feed their families, house them, educate them, and the only way they can do it is come to this country and do the work no one else wants to do, I’m sorry, we disagree that they are doing wrong. And when you say that there are lots of people who have come to this country and are now here legal, remember that came through an amnesty program several years ago in '86. That was a large amnesty program and if we were to have another one of that sort, I don't think any of us would then oppose doing something to make sure that we have no more illegal migration coming. But there are multiple issues in here. But what hurts here is that a lot of people are getting hurt by this action. I realize it's not that the sheriff is arresting them for immigration, but he is facilitating the federal immigration officers to come into our jails and be able to deport many people who are a vital part of our community.

>> thank you. We have been asked by media to make sure you state your names clearly so if they want to quote you they will be able to do it. Apparently they are watching on t.v. By the way, if you signed in, you didn't have to because we have an item like this, we invite people to come up and speak, and my commitment is stay as long as I need to, but if you will leave the table when you finish, we'll just start at this end and work our way around and do that until we get all the people who come down.

>> [inaudible]

>> if you would be mindful that others have come and be as precise as possible as a matter of kurt stoi the others is what we request at this point. Normally after about 10 speakers, I will ask for those with something new and different to say to come forward.

>> thank you.

>> and as for maybe a show of hands. But so far I think the testimony has been a little different and so that's -- let's hear it. Yes, sir.

>> thank you, judge.

>> name, please.

>> my name is brent monhageg. I was hoping to get a chance to thank the sheriff for taking time out of his busy day to come down and explain what is obviously a common sense policy. It is imperative that Travis County law enforcement officials work with all agencies swiftly to apprehend and prosecute those that violate their laws regardless of their immigration status. It makes our community safer and it saves tax dollars. It's been suggested that placing immigration hold on inmates is somehow unfair. In many cases these individuals get a free pass to enjoy the generous benefit of living in our community and then commit serious crime. There is no miscarriage of justice is. We have a right to know who these criminals are. Illegal aliens are responsible for a significant number of felonies in Travis County each year. In many cases it is unknown how many repeat felony offenses could have been prevented by checking their immigration status when they were in jail. Sheriff hamilton's policy to house ice officials to check legal status will provide that information. And with all due respect to Commissioner Gomez, it is illegal to cross our border without our permission. It's called sovereignty. Thank you.

>> [applause]

>> thank you. Yes.

>> my name is nicole true and I want to thank the Commissioners court for putting this item on their agenda, on your agenda and allowing us to come forward and speak with you today. We have put together a packet of information for you. I placed one on each of your desks with a letter from a group of -- a big coalition of organizations, not all of them, have signed on the back because the letter was not completed until late last night and I didn't want to put anyone's name down unless they had given me the green light besides just showing up to our first organizational meeting. But at that first organizational meeting we had over 28 organizations here in Austin present, all concerned with the sheriff's actions. Now, the actions that we're referring to are his new -- his administrative decision to participate in the -- what ice calls the criminal alien program and that is what the sheriff told us at the first meeting which he referred to in his comments I was present at in late January and so that is a new agreement between him and ice whether it be informal or not, but that's what they called it. I would like to just make a -- first a comment that the word "criminal alien" is not defined by ice in their own fact sheet which I have included in exhibit 1. I make a lot of references in this letter and each exhibit is attached so I would encourage to you read it and refer to the exhibits. But under immigration law, being present in the united states illegally -- or being present in the u.s. Following illegal entry or after overstaying a non-immigrant visa generally is not a criminal violation but rather a civil immigration violation. And that is based on our immigration laws, and I provided the citation from the immigrant's rights update. And that is attached. In addition, merely because someone is arrested and every one of us in this room knows someone or may have been themselves arrested on a criminal charge, all of us understand that just because you are arrested doesn't make you a criminal. That you are only a criminal if you plead guilty and admit your guilt or if you are found guilty in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. And so where we take action in terms of the -- just a concerned community member but also as a criminal defense attorney and I see my job as protecting the united states constitution is that people who say they are foreign born during the booking in process at the Travis County jail are being charged with an immigration detainer and it's up to that person to prove that they are here illegally. And we do have those names. They are being compiled in a central list because they may be used for some litigation in the future. It's kind of complicated trying to get it out into thepublic, but they do exist, we're not making it up. I believe the county is opening itself up to a lot of liability in terms when they place detainers on people who are here legally, and I’ve included testimony from the mexican-american legal defense and education fund in this packet that talks about the civil liability that counties in general that allow -- or have cooperative agreements with immigration are facing. And I would like to emphasize comments made by chief art saveda that was published in el mundo, the articles are included in your packet, it's exhibit no. 7. Exhibits are labeled on the bottom. And the -- the chief was asked should the police discharge the role of immigration agents and he said no. Now, I want to be clear, no one here is saying that the sheriff's county deputies are out enforcing immigration laws. I don't believe that they are out stopping people to check their substitute stat us. Now, that may be happening. A few bad apples. It could be happening if what the gentleman who spoke second, that's just one experience we know of that someone came and told us about. There may be others like that. I don't believe it's a policy and in fact the sheriff's department has a very good anti-racial profiling, notice, policy when it comes to foreign nationals. But in any case, the chief came out against the idea of mixing local law enforcement with the enforcement of immigration law. And he stated the reasons why because it undermines the trust between the immigrant community and local law enforcement. And in addition he answered the question should we open more jails for undocumented immigrants here in Austin. And his position was to me jail should be for those criminals that are raping, killing, stealing, assaulting the ones causing harm to the integrity of human beings, the people hurting us, and that there is not sufficient funds at the federal, county or city level for more jails, that we should be using our jails for health and education needs rather than locking people up for immigration violations. And that's in essence what begins to happen when we are getting -- when we allow ice to have an office in our jail, we have a cooperative agreement with ice under that cap program, that we are allowing them to keep many people detained under immigration detainers that would otherwise be out on personal bond. And the danger is that many of these people who have these immigration detainers, one, they may be illegally here, we've already been over that, two, they are being deported from our jail. They are not given access to immigration attorneys, it would be up to that family to go hire an immigration attorney to go and visit their person in jail, to talk about release that that person may have under immigration law. I’m sure mr. Sparsa is going to talk about that. Many people that have relief from deportation, they may be citizens and not know it. They have -- but because they are stuck in jail, they don't have access to legal counsel, they don't have access to get immigration advice before they sign their self-deportation from the jail. That's one of our concerns too, that many people that may be here illegal now actually have an opportunity to become legal and not know it and then they are gone and once they are deported it's much more difficult for them to take advantage of the avenue they may have had to legalize their status. I guess those are my comments. Oh, and I wanted to make one last distinction about what sheriff hamilton said. He brought up the los angeles example and had stated that, you know, los angeles is one of the signors on the major cities chiefs report which we've included in this packet as well. What he said in the los angeles example, the l.a. Sheriffs, they start interviewing people, they allow immigration to come in and determine whether or not they are here illegally or not once they are convicted, after conviction, and that means after they have pled guilty or been found guilty for a judge or jury. What we're doing is the opposite. We're allowing immigration to do their interview in their little room at the arrest when everyone is presumed innocent. That's a big difference. And just anecdotally what my clients have told me, I ask a lot of details about what happened when they interact with the ice people in the jails. They indicate that the person sits at the table, the ice agent has, you know, big stacks of paper and just lines everybody up against the wall and calls them in one by one, and depending on the agent will say something to the degree of, you know, it's my decision whether you get to stay or go. And, you know, ask that person right then and there sign here or not. Or if you don't sign, then you are going to get stuck in the immigration jail. Once you finish with your criminal case. So it's not just -- it is something more than just a countertop, which was what was being used before. And the criminal program, the cap program which is what I understood is being implemented here is something new and different than the 27 years of practice prior. Thank you.

>> nicole, I do think that you deserve the dignity, and if we need to go -- I mean whether they are going to be in the office or not, I mean I’m more than happy to go and have a meeting with the ice people and say, you know, these are human beings, and quite frankly, there may be a lot of them that are legal. Or that are in the process. And you do need to -- I mean I think all of us want to treat people with dignity. I would think -- I don't know of anybody that doesn't. So, you know, that's -- I mean at least if ice maybe might be watching this, I would think ice should be here, I would want that done regardless. So I mean I don't think that should go unstayed because I think most americans feel like we ought to deal with human beings in a dignified manner.

>> part of treating someone with dignity also involves allowing them to have access to the legal advice they need to have in order to make the best decisions that they can. And by putting that detainer while they are being held in jail and forcing them to make the decision of whether or not to self-deport or fight their immigration case from the jail is -- makes it very difficult for them to make a good decision and many people choose to go back home voluntarily than to fight their case and they may be waiving very big rights. What we're asking for is that the county Commissioners do a study and on the economic impact this will have to Travis County and on the human impact and I’ve outlined both of those in the paper. And thank you.

>> thank you, ms. True. Yes, sir.

>> judge briscoe, Commissioner Daugherty, Commissioner Gomez, my name is thomas sparza. It's going to take me time to losen up my voice. I’m here to report a little about the Travis County immigrant assessment. I presented my own personal letter to each of the Commissioners discussing various points of importance, but of importance in the immigrant assessment in particular, there are almost 150,000 immigrants in Travis County. Only half of those are hispanic. And though I love my hispanic brothers and sisters, there's another half that are non-hispanic. 26% are asian. They too will suffer. You know, from an enhanced enforcement program on the part of ice. It's obvious I think to everyone in the room that we have a failed national policy on immigration. If you'll turn to -- in the documents that I presented to you, I gave you the visa bulletin for 2008 and it shows if you want to immigrate your wife to the united states it's going to take about six years. If you want to bring over your adult son or daughter, it's going to take more than 16 years to bring them over. And if they get married and you haven't become a citizen, they can never immigrate. Those are some of the people who are here now who perhaps at one point in time entered the united states lawfully with a v status or some other kind of visa who waited, and because of nuances in the law aged out as we say in the immigration process and became too old to qualify as a child and now are treated as a son or a daughter. Eventually they will immigrate. And that's actually some of these people because of federal lawsuits for different parts of the immigration reform and great lakes responsibility act of 1996 were challenged with immigration services backed down, you know, and their interpretation of the act and their interpretation of definitions of aggravated felony to create new rights for people who were here, you know, who suffered from an overly aggressive interpretation and utilization of that 1996 act in particular. And to give you an example, for about three years a d.w.i., a simple first offense d.w.i. For which you were sentenced to one year was treated as a crime of violence and therefore an aggravated felony and therefore rendered you deportable. It wasn't until the 5th circuit reversed that decision to find a d.w.i. Was not an intentional act of violence those people were allowed to remain. But in the interim, tens of thousands of families were destroyed in the 5th circuit. There's many things that the immigration service agents do not tell you. The ice agents are not trained in relief from removal. Everybody calls it deportation and that's when it is, but the 1996 act changed the verbiage to call it removal I think to make it more politically palatable. And I put that in here because the -- I put that next paper burnt orange for my alma mater, u.t., because they don't tell them of the penalties when they say sign here and you could be out of jail in a detail. They don't tell them about the penalties, they don't cover the visa bulletin to discuss perhaps in two weeks or two months there might be a visa available and they can go to san antonio. The social cost to them to be away from their family causes more often than not them to say you know what, I’m out of here, I’ll wait, or worse, to return to the united states unlawfully. When they do, they are subject to a permanent bar on their immigration. I want to show you just one thing about what happened in irving when they implemented the criminal alien program last year. 60% of the 1700 people who were arrested and had immigration holds put on them had holds put on them for class c misdemeanors. Ice was overwhelmed. The jails were overwhelmed. That's just about all that I to say. I will say that in all of this that's gone on, in all the discussion that's gone back and forth, I have yet to hear a valid law enforcement reason for the sheriff to implement the criminal alien program. The closest I heard to a justification was for the major who sat here to my left to state that he was receiving receiving$1.2 million, they hadt received $1.2 million and they were going to get to buy additional -- I didn't understand the words he used. And so it's got to be the only motivation, it's the only motivation I’ve seen in counties up and down ih-35 where local sheriffs have contracted with immigration and customs enforce the to house individuals and where small town jails like in georgetown or Williamson county and hays county have agreed to allow ice to come in and place holds. So I’m willing to work. I’m a citizen of Travis County. I’m willing to work with the Commissioners. I respect the sheriff. You know, I disagree that the streets of Austin are safer without his aunt or my mother-in-law there. And I hesitate to think what would happen to me if I couldn't get that hold removed, if she had to stay in jail the entire time she litigated a reckless driving. Now, I thank you for your time.

>> thank you.

>> yes, sir.

>> yes.

>> [inaudible] I am part of the leaders court team. I am also a member with Austin interfaith. I was born and raised in Austin. I’ve lived in montopolis for 38 years. I retired from the Austin fire department after 28 years of service. I enjoyed good relations while I was in uniform with all my fellow officers. Away from the station, away from my uniform, it was different. I was treated differently. I am here because I strongly -- I feel strongly that I should not be -- ice should not be here in the county jails. People in the jails have been charged, not convicted. How can we be checking their immigration status? I feel that this is a step backwards on all the work that has been done on making Austin a friendly and livable place for everyone. Our church, other religious organizations, mexican consulate, law enforcement agencies, the city of Austin, Travis County have done a lot of work to make people safe and secure. This decision has undone years of hard work done by many people. I love Austin. If ice is not in our county jails, that goes a long ways to making Austin the kind of city I love. Thank you.

>> [applause]

>> aim a member of the san jose catholic church and I’m an executive committee with Austin interfaith. I am married. My husband was born in lockhart, Texas. In 2000 and 2001, my husband was held in Travis County jail and put in a holding tank for immigration to pick him up. He argued with the officers that he was a citizen and was kept both times for more than 48 hours. He was not given the opportunity to even call me. When immigration officers were transporting him to the vehicle, again he -- he continued to argue with conviction. Now, what they were doing was wrong and they needed to release him. So they finally did. My husband speaks fluent english, has a Texas driver's license, had his social security card, and still they treated him with no dignity and no respect. How many people will have to go through what my husband did. Even our own officers did not listen to my husband and did as immigration asked them to do and that was to place him with the immigrants in a holding tank. My husband still says immigration people officer, they owe me for losing all those hours of work. We the taxpayers of Travis County did not want to be in any way, form or fashion assisting immigration officials to treat any citizen or immigrant the way my husband was treated. And that was inhumane. We understand that they have a job to do and they've been doing it for years without having to have an office in Travis County jail. Thank you.

>> thank you. We'll need those two seats there too. Yes, sir, mr. Harrington.

>> jim harrington, Texas civil rights project. I’m going to ratify except for the fellow sitting on my left side here about people being in the country illegally. But I want to focus on a couple different points that what have been made already. The issue here, I think, clearly to me isn't that we shouldt put immigration holds on people that have committed major crimes and that kind of stuff. That's not the issue. I don't think anybody is advocating that be undone. But I think what the issue is for a lot of us who have dealt with ice and their predecessor the border patrol for years, and I’ve done this since 1973 as a lawyer in south Texas, is the problem of placing ice in the jail itself because it is a notoriously sordid agency, a police force that is out of control in a sense, does not respect the bounds of the constitution, and you can go through our litigation docket involving ice and the way it treats people. And how it goes into people's houses without warrants and how we have a case right now in el paso, for example, where the guy stops a daughter and her mother after they've crossed the river and sexually molested them. Turns out that's the third incident with him. This is typical of the agency that we deal with. And I’m sorry to see in a sense that the sheriff internalizes or has personalized this dispute. This isn't about the sheriff, it isn't about the sheriff profiling. I think everybody has the highest respect for the sheriff and this great job he does and I think all of us have become defensive about it. It's not about the sheriff but it's about what's going to happen when ice gets in the jail and sits there all the time and does the profiling it does. And it is indisputable that it does that. You can't go talk to them and say be nice, ice, it doesn't work with these folks. You can sue them all you want and it doesn't work because they know they are dealing with people who don't understand constitutional parameters, the immigrants that come from outside the united states. Their police force that they deal with is something that we wouldn't tolerate in this country and that's they didn't understand their rights and ice makes abuse of it. I think also what we have seen here and Commissioner eckhardt has pointed this out is that with the federal government right now, they do this all the time. They send their federal agents in, the police in, and they talk to the local police. They get them persuaded, and I guess this is part of the camaraderie that police officers have that they ought to be helping each other and doing that kind of thing, which is good except the feds don't back them up. We've got a number of lawsuits where the secret service when bush has come to Texas, violating people's rights. Secret service plans it, the local people do it and who pays the bill? Not secret service. It's not the federal government. It's been the city of Austin, it's been the city of crawford, and I get you there's nothing in write that's going to indemnify you if you get sued because of something that happens in your jail. And you shouldn't vote on it unless you get that indemnification and I guarantee you are you are not going to get it because it's not the way they are operating. It's too bad the sheriff doesn't appreciate that and hopefully maybe the dialogue tonight will help him appreciate that more on what's really going on here. The other thing I want to emphasize in a different vain in a different way is the impact that this has on domestic violence. Part of our program, the Texas civil rights project, and we have four offices in Texas, part of what we do is run the violence against women project. That allows undocumented women who are married to a citizen who are abused to get legal status. And get out from their abuse of situation and get on their own, get a job, regular rights are established. Terrific program. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to the 92,000 women a year, immigrant women, undocumented women a year that are abused. When the sheriff in el paso county decided that he was going to set up road blocks and talk about checking people for their license and then coincidentally ask them about their immigration status, what was the impact that had? That meant that undocumented women would no longer call the sheriff's department when they are getting beat up or raped or knifed because they were afraid of the consequences. And to me, that's the real danger here because the message is going to go out, the message is going to go out that the Travis County sheriff's department is in collusion with ice. When they are stationed in there and they can work in there, that word is going to get out and the women who are abused are not going to call.

>> jim, they are already in there.

>> no, I’ll tell you this, Commissioner, I think -- this is what you said earlier and I think you are a bit naive about how nice these border patrol people are. They are going to sit and profile. They are not going to ask one white person where they are from. I bet you. I bet you a beer on this one. They are not going to ask one white person. I’ve seen these people operate since 1973. They are not going to ask one white person. Who are they going to ask? They are going to walk through that room and sit there and ask anybody that looks hispanic. And if you look in the litigation history dealing with the border patrol, you will see the vast number of cases volume their profiling. You can't teach an old dog new tricks and I don't think they want to learn new tricks. This is what they are going to do. We all know that. We see that every day. That's what they are going to do. So we're not saying don't do what you are doing, you need to deal with people that are brought in that have major charges, but putting them there is going to let that profiling go on. Putting them there is going to send the message to domestic violence victims. In a convenience, we sit here and have this dialogue about illegal immigrants. They are victims. You know, we're blaming the victim. These folks are becoming because of sheer survival. The same reason my ancestors came here. Sheer survival. We're blaming the victims. If we really want to take care of immigration, fix the economy in mexico. And we fixed it really good with nafta. That's why everybody is coming here. But that's -- why blame the victims? But why make it even worse when we're talking about domestic violence. I don't care in a domestic violence situation who is here legally and illegally. It should not be happening. Who is being hurt in domestic violence should be able to call the sheriff's department without worrying abouthether they are going to get deported or their kids are going to get deported or they are going to be put into custody and this sends the wrong message. The last thing that I wanted to say here is that I’m really bothered by the fact there was no consulting process. This whole issue has been a very strong issue in Travis County for years and years and years about how we treat people and how we want to solve crime by -- with respect to our folks in the immigrant community. Because you cannot solve crime unless you have communication between the community and the officers. The question is why was there no consultation about this. Why didn't the sheriff have a meeting with people and go through that process? Why not have it with you? Why not get together and say here's the opportunity they are offering us, here's the way we've been doing things, that didn't happen. That's why we have this sort of abrasive meetings going on right now, which is very unfortunate. I think the best thing for you all to do, I would suggest, and I think it's in the report that we signed on to, is have somebody, have -- appoint a citizens group to sit down and go over there, go over the whole thing. The sheriff said this is maybe two years away so there's no hurry. Appoint a group, sit down and look at it, how do we deal with it. It may be a way of helping also -- I would like to see this happen, educate the officers about

>> [inaudible]. You know, getting women into the program that are abused undocumented. Victims. That's all I have. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all.

>> [applause]

>> good afternoon. My name is

>> [inaudible] holly and I reside in Travis County and I’m presenting my remarks in the capacity as an attorney with a firm that specializes in all areas of immigration law with a national reputation especially in the business immigration law context. We represent major corporations and employment based immigration, immigrant investors and individuals. I would like to thank the county Commissioners and the sheriff's office for their patience in this afternoon's proceedings. I also would like to thank you for the opportunity to be able to comment on the criminal alien apprehension program. As a permanent fixture in the county jail. I would like to present a couple of scenarios that have come up with frequency in our practice. They reflect facts that have happened typically with folks who are here and I think these scenarios will highlight the practical calculates of the issues that may be faced by immigrants in our community and how that the reflected back in Austin. The first example, let's take a hypothetical, a 17-year-old son of a senior business executive. And both parents, both son and child have a valid non-immigrant visa and he was arrested for possession of a controlled substance when the car in which he was an occupant was pulled over and an officer discovered a small bag of marijuana. He's a senior in high school, top 10% of his class, and this is his first brush with the law. Because drog offenses, even those considered minor under state law, are removable or may be considered removable offenses under immigration law, he may be deportable. What's the consequence. With ice having the ability to place an immigration detainer on a 17-year-old, he may for all practical purposes be unable to bond out of jail. While he could be technically eligible for bond, ice may put an immigration hold on him and seek mandatory detention as a person who committed a drug offense. This young man may face removal proceedings from the united states. He may not be able to contest the state's charges or may be required to stay in jail pending immigration removal. His family may be faced with the choice of leaving a life they have built in the united states. The father may have to leave his critical position with a company that he is employed in Travis County and they may have to return to their home country to avoid separation from their son. Scenario number 2. The spouse of a senior software engineer, lonely and depressed was arrested shoplifting a sweater. This was her second offense in a couple of months. She pled guilty earlier to shoplifting makeup. She doesn't have a prior history of shoplifting and she's never had as much as a speeding ticket. Because she has two separate offenses she may be considered removable from the united states. Consequence. Rather than the ability to seek redress within the judicial system of a county, to -- the underlying causes, she may have an ice detainer placed on her and be placed on removal proceedings. Her spouse rather than face sprays decides to return to their home country. Unfortunately many of us are familiar with late-night phone calls in which we've had something happen to a child, a spouse, a friend, a co-worker. The difference in the situations I’ve just pointed out is when you happen to be a immigrant, even one lawfully present, the zero tolerance can have a permanent and devastating consequence on the immigrant, the family members and the Travis County employers who have come to count on important contribution of our well qualified foreign employees. For this reason we respectfully request the county Commissioners reconsider the decision of the sheriff or perhaps commence a study with regard to ice's enforcement of immigration law at the expense and time of the county. Thank you.

>> [applause]

>> thank you. Yes.

>> my name is rebecca flores and I’m with the immigration reform coalition of Texas. A few things I wanted to say to start out with after hearing the comments about the leel aliens being victims, I would encourage everyone to go back in particular to mexico where many of our illegal aliens come from and work as hard to get things changed in mexico. Their country of origin where their family members are and where they really want to be. I think that's important. The other thing is that whenever we talk about the hispanic population, we always hear about all of this profiling that goes on. Well, it doesn't have so much to do with profiling as the facts. In Texas, 63.8% of the foreign born population were born in mexico. You know, the facts are that in Texas our illegal alien population primarily comes from mexico. So it stands to reason that they are going to be the ones that are looked at. That just makes common sense. I applaud sheriff hamilton for making an effort to actually enforce the law. I mean if I’m not mistaken, we're a country of laws and the purpose of law enforcement is to enforce the law across the board without special treatment being given to a particular group of people just because they may be poor. There are many american citizens that are extremely poor and struggle daily, but we don't just look the other way when they, you know, break the law. As a mother, I have a real hard time telling my sons, you know, that they can't drink because it's against the law until they are a certain age. They can't do drugs because it's against the law. They can't drive or have their -- or not drive because they don't have a license or insurance because it's against the law when we're allowing another segment of our population to have total disregard for our laws. Most of the people that are involved in my organization and with this movement, we don't care where people come from as long as they come legally. They assimilate, learn our language and obey our laws. Over the summer in 2006 we attended all the hearings in Texas that congress held on illegal immigration. And one of the things that we heard that was really sobering was that there is a difference between crimes that are committed by people that are here illegally versus american citizens. We heard testimony of a houston mother whose daughter was raped, murdered, her throat was slit, she was beaten or ibly, stabbed I don't know how many times by three illegal immigrants. Two of those illegal immigrants were apprehended and serving time. The other one by his mother who was also here illegally, got him to florida where his father, who was from venezuela, flew in on a plane, picked him up, took him back. Guess what? Venezuela has an extradition treaty with us but they choose not to honor it. This family will never have pleasure from the murder of their daughter. There is a difference. When an american citizen does one of these horrible crimes, more than likely they are going to stay within the borders of the united states and they are going to be apprehended and they will be opinion r punished. When we deal with mexico in particular since that's the biggest supply of illegal alien population to our state, they don't want to extradite and tell us how we can punish these people. That's not acceptable. The other thing I’d like to mention is that -- let's see. Where was it? Oh. When we look at the various oaths of office that were taken by our law enforcement people and our elected leaders, they were elected and they took an oath to protect citizens of the united states and to also enforce all the laws across the board. That includes, you know, local, state and federal. So just because immigration is considered a federal issue by some, that doesn't mean that you don't take every opportunity available to make sure that the people who have entered the country illegally are departed. And if I’m not mistaken, the first offense of illegal entry is a misdemeanor. The subsequent instances of coming illegally are a felony and not to mention the document fraud. That's a felony. So I just encourage you to do whatever you can to help the sheriff enforce the laws and protect residents because many of these people will go back into the hispanic community and commit the same horrible crimes when they should have been deported. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> [applause]

>> good afternoon. My name is dr. Sylvia herrera and I’m here representing people organized in defense of earth and her resources. I’m just asking myself how far are you willing to cooperate and how far are you going to continue this cooperation and this informal cooperation as has been presented to you. I think that this is all setting it up so there's going to be public distress and then that's going to affect public safety. If you are going to leave it at the discretion of officers to arrest suspected undocumented persons, you are giving the green light for ice to carry on more responsibilities within this system. Next thing they are going to be asking for is training people within the jail to be -- to become ice agents. Since they are so backlogged. There's other issues that come to mind that these m.o.u.'s have been dealt with in different communities. And I’m shocked that I’m having to sit here in Travis County having to talk about this. As a native east Austinite, I thought that Travis County was an area that had been able to come to an understanding and a resolution in terms of how we treat one another with respect and dignity. And I come to you because I have seen firsthand what some of these m.o.u.s with eyes have done to communities, specifically I’m talking about phoenix, arizona, where the sheriff has been using these memorandums of understanding with ice to terrorize the community. I have seen firsthand where the deputies are going into neighborhoods and or arresting people for minor violations and then proceeding to deport people. I have seen and witnessed people that are u.s. Citizens that have gotten arrested and have -- not had access to legal advice. So this is a very dangerous situation that we're encountering right now. And I would ask you not to go down this avenue where you are going leeway to give a lot of discretion of what can be done in and out of your -- the Travis County system. It's a dangerous situation where we're criminalizing the undocumented population. There will be no public trust and there will be more public harm than public good. The situation where the little boy was kidnapped, he was found by a immigrant. And there's other situations that we have heard where an undocumented person encountered someone in the desert. The little boy had been in an accident with his mom, his mom died. The little boy was encountered by an undocumented worker. And the worker stayed there with that little boy because he felt that that little boy so to say that the community is just full of criminals is not true. So I would ask you to reconsider and really come across with a good, strong message that you cannot continue to place the Travis County system in jeopardy. What has been seen in maricopa county, phoenix, has been that -- there's been a lot of lawsuits and the lawsuits have been won by the -- by the parties that have filed against the county. And so the -- it's not working. It's not working and it's not going to work here if you place this type of relationship with ice and you really need to separate that. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> [applause]

>> hello. My name is martha menchaca. I come as a citizen independent of any organization. The reason I came is because I want to share my experience with you regarding my research with ice or basically my inability to do research with ice. My -- I had a very simplprojecto understand if the -- if after 9-11 the cost of vegetables in tes w increasing. And those statistics were very easy and I found they were, the cost for the wages for the workers went up quite a bit, especially in north Texas. What I wanted to find out is therefore more information regarding the agricultural workers and in general also the apprehension rate of undocumented people. Who are they. Are they farm workers? Are they city workers? Who are these people? How are they related to the cost of -- increasing cost of vegetables production here in Texas? I, of course, contacted the governor's office to find out if they could give me some advice how to proceed and they did. They were very kind and they gave me some information. I basically was not able to get any contact with ice through the national centers and the governor's office has said no one is going to contact me or return my calls. So I decided to go to laredo to where they have times you can go in and talk to an officer. So I did, and they said they would talk to me. After I waited there for a full hour, the officer came out, took a look at me and told me no, he was wasn't going to tiewk to me, that I had to talk to somebody in san antonio. Well, but first I had to find out what person I need to do talk to and they gave me a number. I called, I kept calling for months, every single day, I tried to be very polite. Nothing, nothing. I finally did get a phone number of the person who I needed to contact. She used to work for the ice public relations in florida. In miami, I believe. Also I got her phone number through internet and I finally was able to reach her, and then I finally talked to her. And basically the only thing I wanted to do is that I wanted some accountability reports because the government has general reports about undocumented workers apprehensions, but they don't have part of the information for Texas. So I wanted to get it by county level. And she said she would give me these reports and she said we'll proceed by e-mail, and she never did. My concern here is if -- what type of accountability will you have with ice? What type of accountability will we as citizens have in terms of what are they doing in their offices? If a person like myself cannot even inch in to get this type of information, how are other people that are less privileged than myself be treated? I also want to say I felt it very disrespected by the officers in laredo and then just totally ignoring me, it's terrible. I was just trying to do a service for Texas. I want to find out why the cost of vegetables increased after 9-11. And I did contact growers and they were very enthused for my project, but I couldn't really proceed any further if I get get this type of information. So thank you.

>> thank you.

>> did you try your congressman?

>> no, at that point I just was to discouraged, and yes, I thought of the congressman. That was the next step, but by that time -- it took me a really long time to do all this and I proceeded with some other research because, as you know, at u.t. We have to constantly publish. So ice just --

>> I bet the congressman would help you with this.

>> thank you.

>> good afternoon. I’m the executive director of the Texas criminal justice coalition. I just want to tell you that you are not the only ones grappling with this difficult issue. Obviously there are hearings right now going on. There was just a hearing in the corrections committee in the state affairs committee trying to identify what ro seses, if there are any processes in terms of the relationship between local, state governments with ice. And it's very interesting because we were actually invited to provide public testimony before them, as we usually are, and in our process of doing research, we decided that we were going to do a series of questions to immigration, to ice, and we received two different responses. One response was we're not going to provide you information. The second response was maybe we will provide you information. And so I thought, well, who am i. Obviously they are not going to send me information. But they did provide information to the corrections -- didn't provide information to the corrections committee either. They didn't provide information to anyone. They didn't even attend. What I wanted to present to you and this is in your package is basically all of the findings that dr. Tony fabalo has been doing for the state council of state governments who have been dealing on this issue. And several recommendations that we presented to the homeland security on looking at what can the state of Texas, knowing that this is a federal issue, what can the state of Texas do in regards to this political issue. And we presented our testimony, and because it had to do with finances, because it had to do with several interests, they weren't doing anything. So I just want to say that to be honest, a lot of people are benefiting from the division that this topic is creating with various communities. And I see everybody in this room, regardless of ideologys as victims because people are fitting from having a failed criminal justice system. I mean from having a failed immigration system that is looked at as a criminal justice system because there's civil law and there's criminal law. Mr. Harrington was saying something in regards to nafta. I wish he would have articulated more on that because the truth of the matter is of a nafta passed, the u.s. Was able to sell corn -- I’m going to use one produce as an example. The u.s. Was able to sell corn to mexico and as a result thousands of farmers were not able to plant corn and to sell their corn in mexico. So imagine, mexicans buying corn from the u.s. There is nothing wrong with u.s. Corn. I enjoy u.s. Corn. The truth of the matter though is that there is thousands of families in mexico whose livelihood depends on growing that beautiful corn. And now they are not able to do that. Well, in this year, now they are able to sell beans. So now you are going to have thousands more of farmers from mexico who are not able to sell beans. In mexico. And those are only two products. Basic food that is happening. So I -- I would -- I recommend that this committee takes a look at the actual ramifications in terms of what -- how much money you guys are going to have to spend if this takes place. Because I have to tell you that what we have seen is that immigration at the federal level is not going to fully reimburse the counties. And that's one thing that everybody has looked at. Legislation has been proposed to make sure that counties are actually fully reimbursed, but they are not being fully reimbursed. That is one issue. You as Commissioners, when you look at your budgets, take into consideration who is going to pay for what. How much of it that's going to happen, and just look at all of the facts. I really urge you to do that. And look at it and study it as much as you possibly can. Because everybody is looking for an answer. Finally, because I know my colleague is going to address one of the issues of reimbursement, which is really important for you. Finally, I would like to say there is a bill that passed last session, hb 2391 which was supported by the sheriff's office. What this bill dealt with was doing away with jail overcrowding. The chief of police needs to be there. Because the truth of the matter is if you have 500 misdemeanors currently in the county jail that -- I mean there's a lots of things that could prevent jail overcrowding. This bill supported by to the county and a lot of associations was meant to establish that. So I question the public safety benefit of ice of putting so many misdemeanors in our jails. For financial purposes, for public safety purposes, for efficiency purposes. There's at look of reasons why that shouldn't happen. And now there's this bill that took place that allows you and Commissioners court and city officials to use as tools to do away with the jail overcrowding. That to me is a solution that nobody has really talked about, and I encourage all of you to look at it.

>> thank you.

>> [applause]

>> good afternoon. I’m deanna castenada, vice president of diversity and anti-racism for Austin now and the national organization for women at a national level. I’m also co-chair of women of color for national now. I wanted to share with you some things that happened to me back about 10 years ago. And as most of you know I’m a former mark murray of the form Austin school board member. We were on the way to my grandmother's funeral and we were stopped by the border patrol because we fit the description of some illegal aliens they were looking for. Maybe I looked like I just came from mexico, I don't know, but my family has been here more than 100 years and some of your families haven't been here that long under the sound of my voice. And what I’m talking about is profiling. We cannot allow our police officers and our sheriffs to do the work for i.n.s. And that's been said many times before and that's not their job. Their job is to protect us, to protect our rights, to protect the community from becoming victims of violence. And it occurs to me that when I’m watching the news, I see that there are people that seem to have hispanic names and they tend to focus on those people that commit crimes and the numbers rather than focusing on the fact and the general population. It also bothers me and occurs to me that we are taxpayers and we're being constantly lef levied for more taxes. When you look at property values and even when you draw up the taxes for the county or school district, there still is a tax increment. So people are paying for these things. And so therefore at some point with the critical mass of people that may very well be detained, we're talking about more jail space. As you know, that's a lousy jail. Whoever commissioned it did not have the appropriate people to look at making a major facility worthy of this community to hold and keep people in the jail and to provide the adequate space needed for what was needed at the time because Austin has this ability -- or disability about underbuilding in Austin. So now you know we need another jail. And with this incremental increases of people being detained, we're going to have to do something about that. What I wanted to -- I kind of got off track here because I was talking about how we were detained by i.n.s. My kids were in a car behind us. And I dare to say if my boys had gotten out of that car, that it would have looked like an aggressive action. And I would hate to think what would have happened to them. I wanted to say a couple more things to you and then I’ll be done. I just want to know if you are ready to take life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness away from millions of children in the state of Texas and the united states, children that will become victims of prostitution and drugs, no education because one of their parents has been shipped back to mexico. Or to central america. And then I’m going to read you one last thing. And I’m really feeling sentimental and very sad. First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. First they came for the trade unionist and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. First they came for the jews and I did not speak out because I was not a jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> [applause]

>> good afternoon.

>> [inaudible] and I live in Travis County.

>> speak a little louder for us, if you can.

>> I’m sorry. First off, I would like to make a comment about what the lady who was sitting at the end said about nafta. I think there are a lot of us who recognize that the damage that nafta has caused to both sides of the border and I think we agree on at least that issue. I would like to start off by making an observation or reaffirming something that we heard earlier. Commissioner Davis asked a gentleman who was sitting over here earlier about whether he had a problem with people being in a country illegally and the gentleman said no. I think fundamentally right there there's a problem. And it seems to me that that perspective represents the position of a lot of folks who oppose what sheriff hamilton is trying to do. And I think that's -- that shouldn't be ignored. Also, the point was made about expenses and costs. That allowing an ice agent to sit at a desk at the county court is costing us money, we are somehow supporting them and that's probably true. Certainly there's some cost to that. The usage or rental space or however you want to refer to it of that desk. However, the sheriff's agents also made the point that law enforcement agencies regularly cooperate. They have to cooperate. And if they didn't, the law enforcement system would come to a halt. One of the sheriffs also mentioned that by example the sheriff's department is given free use of a rifle range for target practice. Certainly the citizens of Travis County benefit from that. So these kind of cooperations I think can't just be taken in isolation. Have you to look at the total picture and how both sides benefit from that and I think that's a good thing. There's been a lot of testimony given about the detrimental impacts to illegal aliens by this action the sheriff has taken, and I’d like to present a little bit of the other side. In coming here, I did a little bit of a google search just to see what I could find about illegal ail generals and drunk driving and I found just in December there was some illegal aliens from Austin who was drink driving and killed somebody in Leander. That was two months ago. Certainly people have to have some compassion for those folks as well. The -- Travis County annually issues a report called the immigrant assessment document. And I was looking at that earlier and I saw that in 2006 there were 2100 immigrants who were charged with felonies. We don't know how many of those were illegal immigrants because the county doesn't keep records or doesn't inquire about those sorts of things. Just anecdotally, one has to suspect some of them were illegal aliens. These are serious crimes. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the sheriff's office to try to do something about removing those folks and seems to me that's all that's happening here. As far as the responsibility, if you want to put it that way, for how we got into this mess with having so many illegal aliens here, the city of Austin and Travis County expends money for those who are concerned about finances to attract illegal aliens to Austin. The city operates one day labor site, I think they are been to open a second one. The city and county both offer aid to illegal aliens. They don't discriminate between illegal aliens and citizens. Certainly there's a cross there that has to be recognized. How much are we spend to go support folks who we say are coming here to do jobs that americans won't do which I think is a questionable charge or claim. But we're now having to subsidize those employers through charities, through taxes and various other means. So lastly, I would just like to make a comment on something that I’m sure you all heard before and that is the negative impact on wages of working class americans due to illegal immigration. Nobody has really addressed that today. I was reading in the transcript from last week's meeting and didn't seem anybody addressed that. We have to keep in mind while it's admirable to have come pokes for folks coming here and as nafta and other economic pressures are causing problems in mexico, to drive people here at the same time, there are folks here who are suffering because of diminished wages. I agree with a lady who made those observations about nafta in that somebody is benefiting and it's nobody in this room, but I think if it's -- that's somewhat of a separate issue from the short-term law enforcement issues. I think it's very reasonable for the sheriff to do what he's done. I think law enforcement should and must cooperate. And I hope that you allow the sheriff to continue doing that and that you would support him in doing so. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> [applause]

>> thank you. Judge Biscoe, Commissioner Gomez, Daugherty and Commissioner eckhardt, I can't believe you came back. Thank you. I looked --

>> [inaudible].

>> well, you are in a lot of pain and sometimes people take sick days. Thank you very much for coming back all of you. My name is virginia ray Monday. Just in response to what the gentleman just said, none of us brought information about the economic impact of immigrants. It's not as simple as immigrants depressed wages here. You know, there are a lot of information and studies been done. The last thing I looked at was with the comptroller's office and I don't remember the specifics, but the comptroller's office about a year ago or two years ago looked at the irrelevant and found that overall immigrants were actually aiding the Texas economy.

>> we know when people are afraid and when stakes are high and we are afraid and panic and we're tired, we don't always use the best judgment. I say we, I mean all of us, human beings. I mean civilians and I mean law enforcement agents. And I have a nightmare from, you know, last summer when people are tired and people are afraid and people's emotions run high and we have a young man running from a police officer. That wasn't good judgment, but he didn't deserve to get a couple bullets in his back because he used poor judgment. We have a police officer using poor judgment. Also because of the tension in the situation. Maybe that man in a different situation would not have lost his job. I’m just saying that when you increase the stakes and you make people really afraid, you are going to have people making more bad judgments and you are going to increase tension between law enforcement overall. It's not going to be that fine-tuned between the sheriff's office and a.p.d. More afraid of police maybe is not justified. Maybe it's not justified, but if you are afraid of being deported, if you are afraid that you are going to spend time in jail, that you don't -- even if you haven't done anything wrong, you may try to run from the police. And we are looking at car chases, we're looking at people running from the police. That's my nightmare about what it looks like when people are more afraid of law enforcement. That's one consequence. Two, we're talking about the immigration hold. Only 48 hours beyond what time they would have been held otherwise. What's the big deal? For me, it would be unpleasant to be in jail for an extra -- for 48 hours. It would be and I wouldn't like it a bit. It would be unpleasant, but it wouldn't be a disaster because I receive a salary. If I miss work because of something, I have sick days -- I have lots of different things and many of us do who are more privileged sectors of the economy. I’m not going to lose my job. And because I have a house and we're paying a mortgage, I’m not going to lose my house immediately because of a couple of days extra out of work. Or even if I then was passed on immigration and had to sit three months while they investigated me or six months while they decided whether or not they had an affirmative claim to be in the united states or like mr. Sam campbell, the man from sierra loene who is accused of participating in atrocities in 1992 when he was arrested in 2006 and sat in detention for a year. Even after immigration judges and the b.i.a. Had ruled there was no evidence he had done anything wrong. Let me be more precise. He sat in jail about a year including three months or more after the judges and the spefld bia made the decision. There's a lot in stake in terms of time. That's going to affect some of us much more than others. It's going to affect people who do not have salaried positions, who do not have comp time or sick leave that many of us have who face losing our apartment, losing a job. You know, and then if they have kids dependent on them, a spouse dependent on them, elderly parents depending on them. You are talking about hurting a lot of human beings. For what? For what? I think we're looking at a bad solution to a non-problem. I want to tell you, third of all, I’m offended by the representation the people -- some people have made, not all, about immigrants here. Last week I heard about why we need to arrest class c misdemeanors because that's how we taught timothy mcveigh. That's very offensive. It offensive to hear people called felons when we are talking about them being accused of a felony. We know better than that. People here, everyone is considered innocent until proven gment. I’m offended by people picking out the worst crimes and talking about that as if applied to all immigrants. I’m offended by all of that because it's slander and because it's ugly and because it's no reason to -- no way to run a debate or a discussion. And I’m also offended because how stupid do they think we are. Timothy mcveigh and immigration have nothing in common to. Invoke 9-11 when we're talking about immigrants in Travis County, I’m sorry, that is a huge stretch and I find that inflammatory language very offensive and insulting to our intelligence. I want to say -- the fourth thing I want to say is that for seven years I was a volunteer with the Travis County sheriff's department. Yes, me. Volunteer with the sheriff's department. Judge Biscoe has known me since I was an intern at a.d.a. But I was a volunteer with the sheriff's department working in the Travis County jail at del valle. And I was -- I started as a literacy tutor and soon got to have not individual guys but a whole class. What I got were the men who they didn't have a class for at that time who were -- we called it adult basic education. What it was was men who were not prepared to go into the g.e.d. Class. They didn't read well enough to go into that class. These were men anywhere from 18 years old up into their mid 50s who either read not at all and I was teaching them the alphabet or had about a fourth grade reading level. All of those people -- I shouldn't say all. The vast majority of those people were there for crimes of poverty and illiteracy. What do I mean by that? One day I -- we were talking about something about the driver's education code because somebody said their dream was to learn how to pass a driving test. And I got all those booklets from d.p.s. And we used those as our text. And somebody said oh, yeah, I don't have a driver's license either. Of 13 men in that class, not a single one had a driver's license. And had ever had a driver's license. This is not the sheriff's department's fawtion or ice's fault, it's an indictment of lots of things wrong with our country because most of these people were people who had grown up in the united states, who had grown up in either Texas or louisiana. All of them were either african-american or latino. And none of them -- not a single one of those 13 men that day, it was just one day, had ever had a driver's license. What kinds of things were they there for? Driving without a license. Driving without insurance. And, notice, second time driving without insurance. They are all there for crimes -- I’m not saying people shouldn't have driver's licenses or shouldn't have insurance, but those are crimes of poverty and illiteracy and we need to -- we don't need to be locking those people up and causing overcrowding. And then when we find a spare bit of room giving that over to ice. If we have some spare room in the Travis County jail, I’d like to see it used for education, for more g.e.d. Programs and things like. That more 12 step programs. Finally, this is the last thing I want to say. I’m not asking you to ignore the law, and I’m not asking to you dis obey the law. We all know laws are not always right and they need to be challenged and change understand a variety of different ways. I’m asking you not to go over board, not to become overzealous as enforces laws we all know are not working and that in fact are not right. We create -- I don't mean you and me necessarily, I mean in the united states with our decisions, with our policies, we create the conditions for poverty including nafta that hurts working class people here and hurts working class people in mexico, we create the conditions to invite people to come and work to do jobs that are hard and don't have ugly benefits, no security. Then we say you are illegal. A fearful population is a population that is subject to exploitation. Exploitation on the workplace, people not getting paid, people having to do jobs without safety equipment. Jobs -- exploitation on the street and that's why it's so important we have trust in our police officers so we can get -- you know, we can report those crimes. And exploitation in the homes. As jim harrington has talked to you about. Now, the law is not always right. The last time I came to you before this issue was several years ago when we were considering and you decided to first issue a plaque for human sweat, and then to rename the courthouse in his honor. That was a man with many other people challenged laws that were wrong. And I suggest to you that we don't need to be going overboard in enforcing laws -- we all know the way we try to immigrants is wrong and the setup is wrong. People are going to look back and say what were they thinking. What was right about any of that. That we exploit people and then we treat them like this and then we can pick them up any time and keep them in jails. Legal or not -- in jails or ice facilities, legal or not, for indefinite periods of time while we check them out and see if they have -- if their papers are right or not. Do the right thing. Thank you very much.

>> first of all, before I go on, I was kind of offended when that woman, I don't know who she was, said that the crimes created by undocumented was horrendous. You know, oklahoma, the trade building, the pentagon, they were not mexicans. I got pretty well offended. We can point it to a lot of other people and a lot of people in my color, other colors also. But we can't just pinpoint one race or the other. Definitely that's profiling. As you all know, I represent over 180 families for which you have been with me with them for many years and you know who I’m talking about. They have conveyed to me that they are very, very worried. That financially they are very worried because when they leave their house, they don't know if they are going to be stopped. When they are at work, you know, they are going to be asked. When a police officer pulls them over -- you know, the sheriff says, the chief says it, we're not going to ask. And not only the parents are worried, the children. And many of the children are u.s. Citizens. Some of those families have been there for 30 years or more.

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners] be.

>> I think the county is already overburdened and it's going to get worse. As another gentleman was saying, you talk about family violence? How about the children that are violent that will not come forward. Not only here, I have a case where the parents were picked up, ice went to the school, they're in taylor, Texas right now. And the two children are u.s. Citizens, by the way. Aclu is defending. That's just one example of what ice does because there is no jurisdiction over them. They're a homeland security. I wish you could show me how many undocumentd from mexico have caused all these other atrocities, like the trade center, oklahoma, and the pentagon. So to be profiling, believe me, it's something that I and my organization does not approve, does not accept. And I think this is what's going to happen. And I think it is happening in a roundabout way. When I was growing up, discrimination was point-blank. In georgetown on the bottom of the courthouse, there was two water fountains, black and white. When I got to georgetown in 1945 there was three schools, white, black and mexican. In Round Rock there was a pub right there downtown on the archway it said no -- it says no mexicans, blacks, dogs or women. Now it's very subtle. It's out there, believe it or not. It's all there by all colors, and time not just saying latinos. I’ve seen anglos being discriminated. I think you ought to sit down and seriously get together with some professionals. They could probably come up with a better solution. Immigration, let's go back. When they needed us, they gave us green cards. And they don't need us now, they don't want to give us any green cars.

>> that's not true.

>> that is true, sir.

>> that is not true.

>> yes, sir.

>> look, that is --

>> no, sir.

>> although, what is documented is the federal government has increased the amount of federal funds available for deportation actions and has decreased the amount funding available for naturalization processes. That is true. I picked cotton with my crutches. You didn't. I did.

>> don't think I haven't picked cotton.

>> in crutches?

>> I had polio when I was eight months old. You can't tell me something like that --

>> I’m just saying --

>> when you have to do that to survive.

>> what I’m saying is that some of the things that you are saying, in and of itself makes it seem like that -- that all of us or that some of us are racist. And I get offended by that because that is not --

>> well, if you're not, why should you be offended?

>> I’m not.

>> you have no reason to be, but there are people out there that are doing it. Am I right or wrong? That's what I’m talking about. I’m not giving your name.

>> we have two more speakers. Let's let you finish.

>> that's fine with me, but I’m telling you right now that I think something should be done and I think y'all have the power to do it and it's up to you. I’ll leave it to you.

>> thank you.

>> thank you. Yes, sir?

>> my name is craig adair, I’m a volunteer with of Texas. Thanks for having us here to provide input on this. Before I make my comments I would like to comment on a couple of points made here. She mentioned the comptroller's report. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you read it. It's been cited nationally as one of the most thorough studies on the impacts that fiscal and economic impacts on undocumented immigration in a state, and just so you know, the number is $18 billion that uncowmented undocumented immigrants add to the Texas committee. It's a small deficit, but it'slion if you count the county and state level, but the economic condition of the economy is close to $18 billion. The other thing I want to comment on is what I think is a very dangerous myth that underlies this entire debate. And the gentleman here commented on the crime statistics that are mentioned in is 2006-2007 immigration assessment. The 2100 felonies that are committed by foreign born residents of Travis County or charged with. Nationally I would encourage to you look at the statistics on immigrant crime rates versus native born crime rates. This graph actually doesn't show what the comparative crime rates are, but nationally immigrants commit about five times less crime than native born americans. So it's significantly less. I’m afraid this whole debate is permeated by the notion that immigrants do mr crime and that's very misleading and dangerous. And a couple of things that I want to say or reiterating what you've heard, this kind of collaboration inevitably leads to racial profiling. It's not, somebody mentioned here the profiling by ice. In that case that's not the racial profiling that concerns us as much as the aclu. In places like irving and other cities that have implemented this kind of collaboration, latinos are detained, often frivolously. It's the kind of thing that I think is difficult for me as a white man to really understand. I remember harold dutton's comments on the floor of the Texas house this last session when he was speaking on the bill, making it an offense for failure to id when a pedestrian is stopped. And he said, I’ll never forget, members, I don't know if you can see this issue the way I do because you can't see the world through my eyes. And that hit me particularly as a white male because I don't look at law enforcement out of fear, but that's not something that a -- a privilege that all of us have. And I know some of you very well know that. The public safety aspect is something that can't be underestimated. I would encourage you to go around and talk to immigrants as I’ve been spending time in irving where they have adopted similar clob ration. And if you don't think it affects people's willingness to report crime and collaborate, central Texas law enforcement has spent years cultivating very good relationships with the immigrant community and this presence, ice presence in the county jail, threatens that gravely. So I would encourage you to look into that some more. On the issue of the reimbursement, anna mentioned and it's been mentioned here the amount of s cap ream bowrs. That Travis County gets as being 1.2 million. We need to know how much that is of the total incarceration costs for the immigrant population that they receive detainers. Nationally I can tell you that it's about 25 to 30%, meaning a county gets reimbursed about 25 to 30 percent of its costs through this program. Two weeks ago at the corrections committee hearing, the executive director of tdcj testified that at the state level their s cap reimbursements are exactly that, about 25 percent of their costs. So this will imply new costs for Travis County. How much it is, I don't know, and I encourage you to look into that. The last thing I would say is just that there is no federal requirement to do this. The federal law simply prohibits a policy or a law which prohibits cooperation with federal authorities. There's no positive mandate to do this. Thank you for letting me be here.

>> thank you. And our final speaker today...

>> good afternoon, judge, Commissioners. Sorry to be brief. I’d like to start off by apologizing for my prior comments if they have inflamed anyone. It was in regard to making traffic stops, and from a law enforcement perspective, as everyone knows, I’m a patrol officer, I represent the law enforcement association. And my point being with making minor traffic violations is that they are absolutely necessary for public safety. And I defy anyone to ride with me or any of our patrol officers. We have a rideout program. At nighttime you cannot tell the race, color or creed of anyone behind the wheel of a car. And so our sheriff's office complies with all racial profiling laws and statutes, and I can tell you that our officers are not out making minor traffic stops with the intent of taking people to jail in order to determine whether they're here illegally or illegally in order to get them deported. It just is not happening and it's very unfortunate and disheartening to hear a few licensed professionals who listen to our share of the horse's mouth speak on this issue and spin his words for whatever reason, because it's just dividing our community. It's just not the truth. And the fact of the matter is that when we arrest someone on a warrant, when we make a traffic stop, a judge has determined that there's probable cause to place that person in jail. When we bring them to our jail, we are merely housing them. A judge is going to determine if they're released. And that is the extent of the sheriff's office role in this whole issue. We are merely housing people, but we are not determining who gets detained. And we are absolutely not participating in the criminal immigration policy of ice. That is not happening, and I’ll say it again. Please contact our association so that we can come. We're going to speak at a meeting tonight. So we can educate the public on what is truly happening because it's really sad that we want to cooperate, we want to love the relationship that the sheriff in our office has built with community and we're not looking to make not trust. There's no reason for anyone not to call 911 if they're a victim of a crime, especially family violence. Our sheriff has made family violence issues in our community a number one priority of his and addressing in -- there's no person in this community that should fear calling our office in order to get professional law enforcement service because you will not be taken to jail regardless of whether you're in this county legally or illegally. I would urge the court to please -- the action that I think is appropriate to take on this is to recognize that the sheriff is acting within policy of the county, within state law. And take no action and regard this matter as a public safety issue and allow the sheriff to do what he is mandated to do by the residents and your constituents. And that is enforce public safety. Thank you very much.

>> [ applause ]

>> thank you.

>> thank you. Briefly and different.

>> I’m the co-director for lulac district 7. I became aware of this issue, I don't know, over a month ago. And when I first heard it, frankly I was shocked because I said, Travis County is doing that? Travis County is known to be a county where people are fair and welcome. All individuals here, whether they're here documented or not. I did contact Commissioner Gomez's office and began discussions with them, but unfortunately due to having to travel, I never got to follow up on that. I would ask the county to consider the ramifications of instituting the practice of providing space for ice. While I understand that the county has to cooperate with ice, that doesn't mean that the county has to provide a space for them to be permanently stationed there. I think that sends a bad message to the community as a whole. It will cause bad publicity for the county and for the city of Austin nationwide. I would flook this to be implement understand other rural counties around the area, but not here in Austin. I would ask you to not enter into that agreement and think about how it will infringe on the activities of immigrants, their ability to move freely around the community, and their fear of reporting crime. Thank you very much.

>> thank you very much. We will hear from legal counsel in just a moment. Are y'all awake down there, legal counsel?

>> listening to every bit of it.

...we'll take the ice item into executive session under consultation with legal counsel. That's number 24.

we also discussed item number 24, the matter involving the policy or practice to facilitate the bureau of immigration and customs enforcement review within the Travis County jail. There is a meeting at 6:00 o'clock this evening. I move that we encourage the sheriff and his representatives to meet with residents and try to work through the issues that seem to be flowing from this policy or practice.

>> second.

>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.

The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.

Last Modified: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 8:09 PM

February 12, 2008 Item 24

February 12, 2008
Item 24