Federal immigration authorities have scuttled Fairfax County’s bid to join a program that empowers local law enforcement to detain — and begin deportation proceedings for — criminal illegal immigrants, the county’s sheriff said Friday.
Sheriff Stan Barry told The Examiner his office’s application for the 287(g) program, which trains and deputizes local authorities with limited enforcement powers, was rejected by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about a month ago.
The program, touted by other Northern Virginia jurisdictions such as Prince William County as critical to broader crackdowns on illegal immigration, is designed to let local agencies speed the deportation process and prevent criminal illegal immigrants from being released.
Fairfax County leaders, facing accusation of inaction on illegal immigration last year, had heralded the plan to partner with ICE as evidence that they weren’t ignoring the problem. Instead, the initiative died a quiet death.
Barry planned to enter 12 deputies in the training. He said he was told ICE was swamped with applications to enter the program and couldn’t approve new ones.
“Obviously with our application in the pipeline for so long, I was getting the inclination that something wasn’t going right with it,” Barry said Friday.
An ICE spokesman, while confirming Fairfax was not enrolled in the partnership, denied that his agency was rejecting new applicants.
“This past fiscal year we’ve had more agencies sign 287(g) agreements than any other year,” spokesman Richard Rocha said.
Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, who is running to replace Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly after Connolly’s election to Congress this month, plans to bring the loss of a 287(g) agreement before the board today.
“I was investigating where we were on it,” he said, “because it has a significant impact on our ability to deal with criminal illegal aliens.”
ICE is planning to install biometric technology in the Fairfax jail that would check an inmate’s legal status with federal databases, Barry said, which would not cost Fairfax anything.
The 287(g) agreements have been successfully inked with 67 agencies throughout the country, including nine in Virginia, Rocha said.
