EL PASO COUNTY, COLO. -- The El Paso County Sheriff and the governor are squaring off over illegal immigration. Governor Bill Ritter and Sheriff Terry Maketa are arguing about the Secure Communities program. It’s a federal program that lets local authorities access national databases of criminals.
The sheriff said the governor is purposely delaying the program for political reasons, but the Governor said Maketa has it wrong.
Maketa said six months have already passed since the state could have joined the program, but the governor said it’s better to do it right than do it fast.
"It appears he is playing politics with public safety," Maketa said.
Maketa said the Secure Communities program is paid for by the federal government and could be taking dangerous criminals off the street.
"They are booked into our jail and their fingerprints are electronically compared against border patrol and immigration and customs enforcement," Maketa said.
But before he and other county sheriffs can start using it, the governor has to sign off on it.
"I think its being turned into an immigration policy issue when its not," Maketa said.
Some say the Secure Communities program will target illegal immigrants unfairly, but Maketa said the program is applied to everyone who is booked into the county jail.
"These are not people that are just undocumented, these are people that have prior convictions," Maketa said.
The governor's office is denying claims they are dragging their feet launching the program. They said they want to make sure they get it right before the feds force all states to join the program in three years.
But Maketa said everyday that goes by without the program, dangerous criminals could be getting away.
"Those people have been determined to be a threat to our communities and we should be identifying them not turning our head and ignoring them and pretending the technology doesn’t exist," Maketa said.
The governors office said even without the Secure Communities program it is still possible for local law enforcement to search the immigration and customs enforcement databases manually - something they say is done all the time.
Here is the response from the Governor's office:
As we consider whether the Secure Communities pilot program is right for Colorado, Gov. Ritter felt it was important to seek out statewide public input and listen to the concerns that exist about this program. Yes, acting quickly is important. But acting responsibly and thoughtfully is more important. That's why it took the sheriff's association itself months to provide a letter of support.
It is extremely important for people to understand that in three years, the federal government is going to impose Secure Communities on all states, and states will have little or no chance at that point to modify or tailor the program to suit their individual needs. The time we are taking now is allowing us to work with ICE and our local communities to address concerns and, if we decide to move forward with the program, to improve upon it.
If we do decide to go forward with Secure Communities, it will be better for Colorado -- including law enforcement -- and our efforts might then be able to help strengthen the program before it is mandated and imposed on every state.
There are also some factual inaccuracies in the sheriff’s piece, including:
- Gov. Ritter never said or indicated he wanted Boulder or Denver or any specific community to go first. That’s just untrue. To date, El Paso, Arapahoe and Denver counties have said they would pilot the program if the state decides to move forward with it.
- There are a number of inaccuracies and omissions in the sheriff’s timeline, the most important of which is that the Colorado Bureau of Investigations’ computer system, which is necessary in order to link local law enforcement agencies with the ICE database, was not even capable of making that link until April 2010. So for the sheriff to claim we are dragging our feet is just ludicrous.
- The sheriff says that without Secure Communities, an electronic search of ICE records is impossible. Technically true, but without Secure Communities a manual search of ICE records is still possible and is done all the time. It’s done by phone.
- Despite the sheriff’s claim, Secure Communities is not a response to 9/11. ICE would object to this characterization.
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Original Story:
El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa ripped the Colorado government Wednesday for what he said is a deliberate attempt by Gov. Bill Ritter to deny Maketa's office a program initiative that would allow law enforcement to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens.
In a strongly-worded article Maketa made public on the El Paso County Sheriff's Office website, Maketa, who recently won the Aug. 10 Republican primary in his bid for re-election, said 448 jurisdictions across the U.S. use this fingerprint sharing technology called Secure Communities, but it is not in Colorado.
Maketa said the reason for this "could be because Governor Bill Ritter has elected to allow politics to interfere with the safety of our citizens. It could be because he is more concerned with offending criminals than protecting law abiding citizens and supporting local law enforcement."
He said the technology is important because it quickly identifies criminals based on fingerprint analysis. He said alien criminals often use fake names, phony social security numbers and incorrect birth dates.
Maketa said this initiative would help reduce the opportunity of another Sept.11-type attack. Former president George W. Bush initiated Secure Communities while in office in 2007, and Barack Obama signed the Congressional Appropriation into law in 2008.
The system gives the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to more than 108 million records, with about 95 percent of those records including photos. Before Secure Communities, law enforcement did not have access to these records.
Ritter wanted Denver or Boulder, Colo. to be the first to go live with the initiative when it became available to Colorado in 2009, but neither city was interested at the time.
Maketa said he met all of the required conditions set by Ritter but is still being stalled and delayed even though El Paso County is the only sheriff's office in the state with Federal Immigration Enforcement Authority.
"Here we are in August, exactly where we were in February and where we stood on Sept. 11, 2001, because our Governor is playing politics with our safety and intentionally blocking local law enforcement from access to records that can identify dangerous criminal aliens," Maketa said.
If the county were to get the program, Maketa said it would come at no local cost.
Read Terry Maketa's full article here.
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