Herndon sends 13 inmates to be deported

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Herndon officials turned over 13 inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the two months since the town began the federal partnership in June, police said Friday.

Town police processed the inmates under the controversial 287(g) program, offered through ICE to allow local police to initiate the first stages of deportation proceedings for illegal aliens arrested on other charges.

"Based on these initial results, the program is doing exactly what it is designed to do -- giving our officers another tool in their efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens from our community," Herndon police chief Toussaint E. Summers Jr. said in a statement.

Despite the announcement of the results, Herndon officials would offer no details of the identities of the inmates, what they were charged with, or what happened to them once they were turned over to federal authorities.

Town spokeswoman Anne Curtis said that information could not be retrieved on Friday. ICE spokesman Richard Rocha was also unable to immediately provide the information.

The 287(g) program appears to be growing in popularity in Virginia as part of a larger anti-illegal immigrant movement. Prince Willliam, Rockingham and Shenandoah Counties have also adopted it. Across the country, 25,000 have been arrested in the past two years identified for possible immigration violations under the program, Rocha said.

Chris Newman, legal programs coordinator for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, called 287(g) a "horribly misguided policy" that will be a hindrance to local policework.

"One can already see the sort of witchhunt mentality that is under way," he said. "It makes law enforcement more difficult when people are afraid of coming forward to report crimes because they feel they'll be discriminated against because of their immigration status."

wflook@dcexaminer

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