County says feds not cooperative when it comes to immigration issues

CHICAGO | Cook County government officials, including Sheriff Tom Dart, were critical of federal officials Thursday for what they say is their unwillingness to cooperate with local officials on issues that touch on federal immigration policy.

The County Board is studying a measure concerning county jail inmates who manage to post bond and would be released — except there is reason to suspect they are not U.S. citizens and do not have a valid visa.

County officials last year approved a policy by which the sheriff's police ignores the detainers often placed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that would require them to be held in local jails even after they post bond.

Thursday's hearing was meant to study an amendment to that policy. But it gave county officials the chance to complain, and federal immigration officials were not in attendance. Calls to the Chicago office of the Department of Homeland Security were not returned.

Dart said federal ICE officials routinely refuse to give his office information about how they decide which people suspected of immigration violations should be detained, or many other details related to how they think the two agencies should cooperate.

"They're asking the (County Board) to create policy in the dark," Dart said, adding that if such policy fails to work, "they will be the first to criticize" the County Board.

Also critical was County Board member Deborah Sims, who represents the far South Side and surrounding suburbs such as Riverdale and Harvey. She said, "There are a lot more of (federal officials) than the 17 of us" County Board members.

"It seems like we're damned if we do, or damned if we don't," she said.

Since the current policy was put in place in September 2011, there have been 346 noncitizens released from the county jail who might otherwise have been detained, officials said. Only 11, thus far, have been charged with committing new crimes.

The proposal under review now says jail inmates facing charges for violent or severe drug crimes would be detained for immigration — even if they are able to post bond for their local offenses.

County Commissioner Timothy Schneider, who said he met privately with federal immigration officials, said he got the impression they weren't any more pleased with his proposal than they were with the original ordinance adopted by the County Board in September.

"They're not happy with this amendment," he said. "I got the sense they would want to review all of our jail inmates to see which ones they are interested in, and that's not going to happen."

This measure originated with an incident involving a Mexican citizen who spent five months in the county jail on a drunken driving case that killed a pedestrian. The inmate's family ultimately came up with 10 percent of his $250,000 bail and he was released. He has not been seen since, and federal officials say they suspect he fled to Mexico.

The man killed in that case was William "Dennis" McCann, and several of his family members expressed their views that the suspect never should have been released from jail.

"All the McCann family wants is to see that this doesn't happen again," said Gerald Brumley, whose wife is a cousin of William McCann.