Florida Criminal Attorney Blog
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the Lake County Sheriff’s Office has been using federal immigration detainers to arrest and jail suspected illegal immigrants. Lake County is not the only jurisdiction making use of this practice but, according to the report, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office is one of the more active agencies making these sorts of arrests–during the last two years they have made more than 200 arrests of individuals who have no other criminal charges.
This practice can open the Sherriff’s office to civil liability including lawsuits for constitutional violations, false arrests and false imprisonment. And as a result of these arrests, the ACLU has sent out a statewide missive urging the law enforcement agencies “to end the unlawful practice of jailing people based upon ‘immigration detainers’ issued by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.”
ACLU officials say I.C.E. has authority to request detention of immigrants already in custody for controlled substance violations. However it seems that the more recent practice of rounding up otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants in detainer sweeps is excessive and unnecessary.