Suit says county held man illegally for federal agents
Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008
Benton County jailers illegally held an inmate on behalf of Northwest Arkansas’ Immigration Criminal Apprehension Task Force for 3 1 / 2 days, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U. S. District Court. According to the suit, Amilcar DeJesus Lopez-Santos of Gentry was held without proper documentation or authority from U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lopez-Santos posted $ 3, 000 bond Friday on charges of driving without a license, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, and careless and prohibited driving, the suit states. Ken Swindle of Rogers, one of Lopez-Santos’ attorneys, said his client should have been released from jail when he posted bond, but officials held him until Tuesday. According to the suit, federal law requires jails to have an immigration “detainer” document on file in order to hold a suspect on behalf of federal authorities.
A detainer document shows the suspect’s immigration status is being questioned and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, plans to pursue deportation or other federal charges.
In Lopez-Santos’ case, Swindle said he asked Benton County jail officials for proof of a detainer, and they said they didn’t need one. According to Swindle, jailers said they could detain Lopez-Santos indefinitely on a verbal directive by immigration agents.
“You ask the jail to show you cause for incarcerating someone, and they say, ‘I don’t have to, ’” Swindle said. “That’s a pretty scary system.”
Deputy Doug Gay, Benton County sheriff ’s spokesman, said the jail released Lopez- Santos on Tuesday afternoon to the custody of the Immigration Criminal Apprehension Task Force.
The task force is composed of officers from Benton and Washington counties working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest and deport illegal aliens committing serious crimes in Northwest Arkansas.
Gay said federal law gives immigration agents 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, in which to retrieve a suspect from jail being held on a detainer.
“In this case, we were roughly four hours over the 48-hour time limit, but as a general rule, the sheriff’s office is diligent in complying with the law as it’s been set out by ICE,” Gay said.
Swindle said the 48-hour law doesn’t apply in Lopez-Santos’ case because there was no detainer filed at the jail.
Temple Black, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Orleans, said Wednesday he would check with the agency’s attorneys to find out if a written detainer is required to be filed in such cases.
Black, also the spokesman for the Northwest Arkansas task force, said he couldn’t discuss the status of Lopez-Santos.
Gay said Lopez-Santos was taken from the jail by the immigration task force to a cell at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Fayetteville.
Black said information about suspects in immigration custody isn’t typically released until the person is charged with a federal crime, or until an administrative deportation action is filed in court.
“That’s another problem with this system,” Swindle said. “Who knows how long my client will sit in a cell at the [field office ] without anything being made public,” he said. “How long can they hold him ? Indefinitely ? I don’t know.”
Black said he would refer to the agency’s attorneys questions about how long a suspect can be held by immigration agents without information being made public.
The suit initially asked for a federal judge to order Lopez-Santos’ immediate release from jail.
But Swindle said he and Little Rock immigration lawyer Milton DeJesus, who also represents Lopez-Santo, will modify the suit to ask that Lopez-Santos be released from immigration custody for as long as he was allegedly wrongly held in Benton County.
“Our position is he’s entitled to be out for the amount of time Benton County didn’t have the authority to hold him,” Swindle said. “Our position is he’s entitled to 3 1 / 2 days of freedom.”
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