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Sergio Martinez returned to Portland after nearly a decade’s absence. But he’d been busy in the meantime: Deported 12 times. Convicted three times for illegal re-entry. A rap sheet of crimes from burglary to theft in three states.

Immigration agents noticed his name on a Multnomah County list of jail inmates last December. They asked the Sheriff’s Office to alert them before releasing Martinez so they could send him back to Mexico one more time.

But they never heard a word. Martinez spent a night in the downtown jail, then was out.

Police in Portland arrested Martinez five more times over the next six months. Each time, he was booked into jail. Each time, immigration agents had no idea that he’d been arrested, booked and released.

On July 24, seven days after his last release,

Martinez, 31, crawled through a window in a 65-year-old woman’s Northeast Portland apartment, tied her up with scarves and socks and sexually assaulted her, police said.

That night, he grabbed a 37-year-old woman at knifepoint as she walked to her car. He forced her into her car, but she escaped and he followed, tackled her and repeatedly bashed her head into the concrete until others arrived and he ran off, police said.

Martinez’s record has become Exhibit A in a polarized political landscape that pits the Trump administration’s vigorous push to curtail illegal immigration against states like Oregon with powerful sanctuary movements.

Martinez’s latest arrest inflamed a national debate that shows no signs of waning. Top federal law-and-order leaders from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Oregon U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams decried the local jail’s silence on a criminal who had earned the label of “serial immigration violator.” Multnomah County itself had labeled Martinez’s chances of committing another crime and failing to appear in court as “100  percent.”

“The fact that these things happened to these two women is inexcusable,” Williams said.

Williams and immigration officials say the sheriff has misconstrued state and federal law, arguing that nothing prevents local police and jails from sharing information with federal agents about people in the country illegally who face criminal charges. Other Oregon counties and the state Department of Corrections routinely provide that information.

“We can’t do our job and enforce federal immigration law without that shared information,” Williams said. “This is information going from one law enforcement agency to another and it’s about public safety. It’s that simple.”

Related Story:
List of Sergio Martinez’s deportations, federal prosecutions

Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese defended the jail’s actions, saying it was following state law and federal case law. He turned the tables, asking why federal officials allowed Martinez to enter the country illegally more than a dozen times.

Reese said he felt “distressed and heartbroken” that Martinez is accused of preying on women after his release from jail.

But he said sheriff’s deputies will notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about an inmate or hold that person longer only when they get a federal criminal arrest warrant signed by a judge. The ICE “detainer” for Martinez was an administrative request and doesn’t meet the jail standard, he said.

“While I certainly respect U.S. Attorney Billy Williams and his thoughts on this, he represents ICE so his policy is specific” to the immigration agency’s interests, Reese said.

“We’re trying to build relationships of trust with immigrant communities. Having our police officers involved in immigration enforcement would damage our ability to keep our community safe,” the sheriff said.

Michael Kagan, a legal expert on immigration issues, said the law allows the jail to make a simple notification to ICE about an inmate’s release.

“If a locality is choosing not to share that information, that’s their policy choice,” said the law professor from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “The Constitution is not a shield on that.”

But Kagan added that there’s nothing to stop immigration officials from seeking an arrest warrant to detain someone. He noted that ICE isn’t set up to do that and hasn’t devoted the resources to change.

But Kagan added that there’s nothing to stop immigration officials from seeking an arrest warrant to detain someone. He noted that ICE isn’t set up to do that and hasn’t devoted the resources to change.

ACLU of Oregon attorney Mat dos Santos said he believes immigration agents have the wherewithal to check jail rosters and pick up people they want. They don’t need to enlist local help.

“The problem with information sharing,” he said, “is it sweeps up many, many people who have low-level offenses into this increased enforcement regime.”

COMMUNICATION WITH ICE EVAPORATED OVER TIME

Multnomah County, with by far Oregon’s busiest jail system, now follows the strictest interpretation of the state’s sanctuary law, essentially cutting off direct communication with immigration agents on inmate arrests and releases.

From 35,000 to 38,000 people get booked into the system here each year, including an estimated 4 percent who report being born in other countries.

The Martinez case highlights how the county’s relationship with ICE has evaporated over time, but especially after President Donald Trump’s election. It also has exposed a gap in sharing jail fingerprint records that immigration agents can use as a back-up way to find people.

Reese changed the rules shortly after Trump took office.

Oregon’s statute on “Enforcement of federal immigration laws” was designed to prohibit the use of public resources to arrest people “whose only apparent violation of law” is their illegal immigration status — a civil offense, not a crime. The 1987 law was intended to prevent police from using immigration regulations to profile or harass people based on their race, testimony on the bill showed.

Before its adoption, legislators added an amendment at the request of Oregon State Police to make sure local authorities could exchange

 information with ICE for people arrested on a non-immigration criminal offense.

For years, immigration agents had regular shifts at Multnomah County’s downtown jail, allowed to review booking registers to look for people who faced deportation.

But that stopped after a federal magistrate judge in 2014 ruled Clackamas County was liable for damages after it held an inmate beyond her release date at the request of immigration agents who were still investigating her immigration status.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart decided that Clackamas County violated Maria Mirandas-Oliveras’ Fourth Amendment right by keeping her in jail 19 hours after settling her state case for violating a domestic violence restraining order.

More of it

 

http://www.gopusa.com/sex-atta...ials-into-spotlight/

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