Lake Co. sheriff wants deportation powers

The Lake County sheriff's office has applied to certify some of its officers to do deportation paperwork processing under a federal program that ignited a storm of controversy this summer in Waukegan.

Sheriff Mark Curran said Monday he wants the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to qualify six corrections officers to begin the paperwork for deporting illegal immigrants charged with committing serious crimes.

When Waukegan police announced this year they would seek similar certification for officers, immigrant rights groups protested the action as setting the stage for mass roundups of all those who are in this country illegally.

The Waukegan City Council eventually voted to move forward with the application, but only after hundreds of people demonstrated outside the council chambers.

Curran and his director of homeland security, Wayne Hunter, said Monday they wanted to avoid similar protests by explaining how the process worked.

And while Curran said he hoped people would understand his motives for the application, he said there would be no public debate on the move.

"This is not a matter that is open for discussion," Curran said. "We believe it was the right to decision to make and we made it."

Curran said the certification of officers under the federal 287 (g) program will allow them to be trained to begin the deportation process for people already under arrest for serious crimes.

No new police powers or federal authority would be bestowed on the officers trained in the program, Curran said, nor would they process paperwork for anyone simply for being in the country illegally.

"Pure and simple, this is an effort to get violent criminals, child molesters and drug dealers out of a country they have no right to be in," Curran said. "No one who is not charged with a serious offense will be affected."

Curran said jail officials currently notify ICE of the arrest of anyone who is in the country illegally for even the most minor offenses, and have done so for years.

Training corrections officers to do ICE paperwork for deportation proceedings will only speed a cumbersome process, said Hunter, who worked with federal officials for 11 years as a Waukegan police officer assigned to a narcotics task force.

"The deportation process is very paperwork intensive, and our officers will simply be getting the ball rolling," he said. "It is all about a collaborative effort between us and the feds to make the streets safer."

Hunter said Curran asked him to research the issue as soon as he was appointed to the security position in May.

"We have looked at this from every conceivable angle and were very methodical about it," he said. "This is not something we wanted to knee-jerk into, and I do not believe we are."

Hunter said the deportation process would only be begun for people charged with violent offenses, sex crimes and the most serious of drug offenses.

The criminal court process would play out for everyone targeted under the plan and the sentences of those convicted would be served before any deportation took place.

He said it could be a year or longer before ICE reviews the sheriff's office application and agrees to train the officers.