Opinion ID: 4564885
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Use of Immigration Detainers

Text: References to immigration detainers and immigration holds on persons in state or federal criminal custody can be found as early as the 1940s. See Chung Young Chew v. Boyd, 309 F.2d 857, 865 (9th Cir. 1962); Slavik v. Miller, 89 F. Supp. 575, 576 (W.D. Pa. 1950), aff’d, 184 F.2d 575 (3d Cir. 1950); Ex parte Korner, 123 P.2d 111, 112 (Cal. Ct. App. 1942). Congress, however, first codified the authority to issue immigration detainers in 1986 as a provision of the INA. See Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-570, 100 Stat. 3207–48, § 1751(d) (1986) (codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d)). Section 1357(d) authorizes the issuance of detainers to federal, state, or local LEAs for individuals suspected of being aliens and who are arrested for violating any law relating to a controlled substance offense. 2 The provision 2 Section 1357(d), titled “detainer of aliens for violation of controlled substances laws,” provides in full that: In the case of an alien who is arrested by a Federal, State, or local law enforcement official for a violation of any law relating to controlled substances, if the official (or another official)— (1) has reason to believe that the alien may not have been lawfully admitted to the United States or otherwise is not lawfully present in the United States, (2) expeditiously informs an appropriate officer or employee of the Service authorized and 12 GONZALEZ V. USICE does not require that such an LEA actually detain an individual. Although § 1357 is the only statutory provision that refers to immigration detainers and concerns only suspected aliens who are arrested for a controlled substance offense, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE, one of its component agencies, use immigration detainers to enforce federal immigration law more generally. See 8 C.F.R. § 287.7 (titled “detainer provisions under section 287(d)(3) of the Act”). Pursuant to § 287.7, a detainer is a form by which DHS requests, in relevant part, that a federal, state, or local LEA temporarily detain an alien in that agency’s custody “for a period not to exceed 48 hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays in order to permit assumption of custody by [DHS].” Id. § 287.7(d). designated by the Attorney General of the arrest and of facts concerning the status of the alien, and (3) requests the Service to determine promptly whether or not to issue a detainer to detain the alien, the officer or employee of the Service shall promptly determine whether or not to issue such a detainer. If such a detainer is issued and the alien is not otherwise detained by Federal, State, or local officials, the Attorney General shall effectively and expeditiously take custody of the alien. 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d). GONZALEZ V. USICE 13 Form I-247A is the current immigration detainer form. 3 Id. § 287.7(a). A detainer is not a warrant of any kind. In 2008, DHS launched the Secure Communities program, which automated the issuance of immigration detainers. The program links DHS databases with the FBI’s nationwide fingerprint database, which receives fingerprints from state and local LEAs after bookings. All persons arrested in the United States by a LEA have their fingerprints and associated personal information automatically checked against DHS databases for immigration purposes. The issuance of detainers increased exponentially following automation. Whereas ICE issued roughly 600 detainers per month in FY 2005, monthly detainers exceeded 26,000 by the end of FY 2011. Until December 2012, ICE issued detainers based only on the initiation of an investigation into whether an individual was removable. In 2017, ICE changed its detainer policy in response to litigation. 4 Under its current policy, ICE issues a detainer in the case of an individual arrested for a criminal offense when “the officer has probable cause to believe that the subject is an alien who is removable from the United States.” Under the policy, a signed administrative arrest warrant issued pursuant to 8 U.S.C. §§ 1226 or 1231(a)—INA provisions concerning the Attorney 3 A publicly available version of Form I-247A is available here: U.S. DEP’T OF HOMELAND SEC., U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, Form I- 247A, https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Document/201 7/I-247A.pdf (last visited September 2, 2020). 4 See U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t, Policy No. 10074.2: Issuance of Immigration Detainers by ICE Immigration Officers, available at: https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents /Document/2017/10074-2.pdf (last visited September 2, 2020). 14 GONZALEZ V. USICE General’s authority to perform arrests by warrant and detain certain aliens—must now accompany a detainer. This policy is not reflected in the detainer regulation. See 8 C.F.R. § 287.7. Although in issuing an immigration detainer, ICE premises a probable cause determination of removability on any one of four grounds, this case concerns one procedure in particular: ICE’s use of biometric information to confirm an individual’s identity and a search of electronic databases to determine whether the individual lacks lawful immigration status or has such status but is removable. II. The Issuance of Immigration Detainers from the Central District The immigration detainers at issue in this case are primarily lodged by ICE agents at the Pacific Enforcement Response Center (PERC), located in Laguna Niguel, California. PERC issues detainers 24 hours a day for persons in federal, state, or local LEA custody in the Central District, and issues detainers after hours for individuals in such custody in some forty-two states and two U.S. territories. To issue these detainers, law enforcement specialists at the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) and analysts at PERC search multiple electronic databases to find “affirmative evidence of removability.” PERC agents do not investigate beyond database checks. This process commences when a law enforcement officer arrests an individual. The individual’s fingerprints are automatically sent to the FBI and run against two databases, the Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (IAFS) and the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT). IDENT assigns a Fingerprint Identification Number (FIN) to each individual’s GONZALEZ V. USICE 15 fingerprints. IDENT contains fingerprint data for certain U.S. citizens, including those who the FBI believes belong in the system, those who voluntarily enroll in certain trusted traveler programs, those who have applied to naturalize as U.S. citizens, and those who have filed applications for certificates of citizenship. IDENT contains over 237 million unique identities. IDENT captures all biometric and biographical information on an individual regardless of typographical errors. IDENT is a very accurate source of biometric matching. If there is a fingerprint match in IDENT, an Immigrant Alien Query (IAQ) is automatically generated and sent to LESC. The Alien Criminal Response Information Management System (ACRIMe) automatically generates an Immigrant Alien Response (IAR), which PERC receives. To generate the IAR, ACRIMe automatically searches the NCIC (National Crime Information Center), NLETS (National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System), CIS (Central Index System), CLAIMS 3, CLAIMS 4, EID, IDENT, ADIS (Arrival and Departure System), SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System), and EOIR (Executive Office for Immigration Review) databases to match the FIN to any other encounter with that individual. The IAR contains basic biographical information and criminal history as well as a short statement about immigration status and removability. An analyst, who is a federal contractor, conducts a first level review of the IAR and makes a recommendation to an ICE officer about whether a detainer should issue. 5 5 Although the analyst has the discretion to run an independent database check, which is done in “complex cases,” we are unaware of 16 GONZALEZ V. USICE This system has resulted in the issuance of thousands of detainers. For example, the Government estimates that it issued nearly 50,000 detainers from PERC in FY 2019. Trial evidence nevertheless indicated that ICE does not take into custody up to 80% of the individuals for whom PERC issues immigration detainers.