AGENDA #5c(3)
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TO: |
Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager |
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FROM: |
Major Brian Curran, Interim Chief of Police Terrie Gale, Police Attorney |
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SUBJECT: |
Report in Response to Citizen Group’s Proposed Resolution on Immigration Arrest Policy |
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DATE: |
April 11, 2007 |
The following information responds to a Petition presented to the Town Council by the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Attachment 1) asking the Council to adopt a resolution proposed by the committee entitled, “Amended Resolution Establishing A Policy On Arrest For Civil Immigration Violations”. Under the Resolution, if adopted, it “shall be the policy of the Town of Chapel Hill to arrest or take into custody a person only when such person is known to have committed a criminal felony violation.”
We recommend that the Council take no action.
Immigration warrants issued by the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) include both criminal arrest warrants and civil administrative warrants for persons who are subject to orders of deportation. Within the last several years, ICE has begun to place its civil warrants, as well as its criminal warrants, into the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) database. This database includes warrants issued by federal and state law enforcement agencies everywhere in the United States. It regularly is checked by law enforcement officers to determine if a person is the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant (felony or misdemeanor) issued by any law enforcement agency. The NCIC database contained only criminal warrants until ICE began to include civil warrants, and law enforcement officers previously have been able to presume that a person identified by NCIC as the subject of a warrant could be arrested. The placement of civil warrants in NCIC has been opposed by major national law enforcement organizations, which have emphasized the confusion this has created for law enforcement. But ICE has continued to put civil warrants into NCIC.
The issue of dealing with civil warrants in the NCIC database has been addressed by the Chapel Hill Police Department through policy and education of officers (Attachment 2). Officers have been instructed that they must carefully check ICE warrants, notwithstanding the usual rule that persons in the NCIC database are subject to arrest. If an ICE warrant appears to be civil in nature, the officers are instructed to contact the Chief or the Police Attorney immediately. In the absence of some criminal basis (felony or misdemeanor) for arresting the person, officers will not take the person into custody.
This procedure serves the purpose of the proposed Resolution to the extent that it provides that persons subject only to civil immigration warrants will not be arrested or taken into custody by the Chapel Hill Police.
The proposed Resolution states that no person should be arrested unless “such person is known to have committed a criminal felony violation.” However, the Chapel Hill Police Department will continue to arrest or cite persons when there is probable cause to believe they have committed felonies or misdemeanors.
We recommend that the Council take no action.