Immigration News

City Looks To Deport Criminal Illegal Immigrants Via Program

After a recent spate of violent crimes allegedly committed by illegal or suspected illegal immigrants, Nashville has asked to become one of five American cities empowered to deport its own criminal illegal immigrants.

On Aug. 15, Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall—with the full support of Metro Chief of Police Ronal Serpas and District Attorney Torry Johnson—filed paperwork to take part in a little-known federal government initiative called the Delegation of Authority Program or section 287 (g) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

The 287 (g) program gives local law enforcement agencies the “training and subsequent authorization to identify, process and, when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter during their regular, daily law-enforcement activity,” according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security fact sheet.

Local implementation of 287 (g) would not authorize the police or sheriff’s deputies to conduct active sweeps of suspected immigrants, nor would it allow any Metro agency to deport aliens who happen to be identified as illegal.

What it would do, according to Hall and others familiar with the program, is allow Sheriff’s Office personnel to screen anyone who is arrested and placed in jail, and who is suspected of being an illegal immigrant, to determine if those persons previously have been deported or are otherwise subject to any federal immigration enforcement action.

Presently, sheriff’s deputies must feed information on arrested suspected illegal immigrants to a federal database in Vermont and wait for an answer that may or may not come.

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	The USCIS may not approve or deny your Employment Authorization Document If USCIS does not approve or deny your Employment Authorization Document application within 90 days (within 30 days for an asylum applicant; note: asylum applicants are eligible to file for EADs only after waiting 150 days from the date they filed their properly completed original asylum applications), you may request an interim Employment Authorization Document.